Haydn, Dvorak given a spirited run by the NAC Orchestra

Same musicians, new program on Saturday

Friday’s National Arts Centre Orchestra concert wasn’t really a Music and Beyond event, but it was listed in the M&B calendar and festival pass-holders were admitted at a special rate. Thus it was a good fit both ways. The program consisted of Haydn’s Symphony 60 and Dvorak’s Cello Concerto.

The Haydn is a symphony in name only. It is actually a suite of six excerpts from the composer’s incidental music for a popular play of the time, Le Distrait, by one JeanFrançois Regnard. It is witty and inventive, and conductor Jakub Hrusa led a solid and spirited performance that drew the most from the score.

Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in B minor is the composer’s last major work and is redolent of the memory of a first love, his sister-in-law for whom he carried a flame all of his life. She died during the composition of the concerto and the second and third movements make reference to some of her favourite music.

Cellist Johannes Moser, Hrusa and the orchestra seemed all of one mind. The heart-rending beauty of the third movement has seldom come across as convincingly, but indeed the whole concerto was superbly integrated thematically and emotionally.

Moser’s cello sound was just about perfect for the piece, rich, nuanced and consummately expressive.

The program was short and the audience large. The audience was also largely inexperienced, as witness the applause at the end of every movement. There’s nothing really wrong with that. I don’t think the musicians minded; perhaps some more seasoned listeners were annoyed, but that’s their problem.

The hall was papered and hundreds of people got to hear some excellent music-making that they would otherwise not have encountered. Perhaps they’ll be back for more.

The same conductor, cellist and orchestra will present a program of slightly more esoteric repertoire Saturday evening, also at 7:30. It will include a Mozart symphony, Lalo’s Cello Concerto and a symphony by a contemporary of Beethoven, Jan Vaclav Vorisek.