Friday, September 12, 2025
National Concert Hall, Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin, Ireland
This takes me back – to 1994, Royal Festival Hall, London, a wonderful concert by the touring Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and Leonard Slatkin – Bernstein’s Candide Overture, Vaughan Williams’s Tallis Fantasia, William Bolcom’s Lyric Concerto (written for and played that night by James Galway), and a compelling and poignant account of Ein Heldenleben (with charismatic violin solos from concertmaster David Halen, a position he retains to this day), followed by Gershwin and Glière encores. I had interviewed the conductor a few months earlier (regarding his Philharmonia Orchestra projects) and found him delightful company – affable, humorous and illuminating – which added to my appreciation of the numerous SLS recordings they had made by then. On the night of the London concert, some well-informed people where talking about Slatkin standing down as SLS music director (appointed 1979). I hoped not. Whether fanciful or not, that particular Heldenleben did seem to have an end-of-an-era feel, and it proved prophetic, as well as being superbly played, a musical bond summed by the long embrace between conductor and concertmaster following a stellar performance that left me stunned.
Of course he continues to be closely associated with SLS as Conductor Laureate – Elgar One in a few weeks – and, cutting short this preamble, what of this Dublin Heldenleben three decades later… graphic and glowing, musically accomplished, spaciously conceived with a sureness of direction, and a story being told, the Hero (Strauss himself) assertive, his Critics spiteful and his Companion of complex character – leader Elaine Clark impressive – the relationship becoming voluptuous (NSOI strings richly sounded and entwining, harp to the fore). From afar, trumpets call the Hero to Battle, a conflagration arriving in Dublin unceremoniously (for me it used to take quite a few seconds when turning over Fritz Reiner’s LP), much incident as victory was sought and swept towards, achieved, horns heroic, then at-peace reflection with a shopping-list of self-quotations (as of 1898, Strauss with half-a-century of composing still to come) and a move to retirement and sunset, raptly brought off here.
To open NSOI’s 25-26 Season Slatkin introduced Cindy McTee’s Timepiece (2000; Dallas Symphony) to Ireland. Mysterious expectation and some percussive shake-rattle-and-roll cue eight minutes of scintillation driven by John Adams’s woodblock, Timepiece being a longer ride in a faster machine, NSOI in top gear, Slatkin, foot hard on the pedal, galvanising all before him, brilliant response. Minor-key Mozart followed (Piano Concerto No.20), the orchestral exposition flaring with drama to cue David Fray’s impassioned yet stylish assumption of the solo part, Slatkin and the players tactile partners, heading, surely, to Beethoven’s cadenza, but no… I’ll assume it was Fray’s own. The slow movement flowed expressively with no lack of import, the stormier contrasts arriving undisguised, and the Finale was excitingly impulsive, crowned by an explosive cadenza in-keeping with this high-octane account. For an extra, transcribed by Siloti I imagine, Fray offered the Bach ‘Air’ that’s associated with a lettered string, and for older readers, Shakespearean-twinned cigars, H*m**t.
Leonard Slatkin has been coming to Dublin for quite a few years now, annually, a relationship with NSOI that has burgeoned, witness this well-relayed concert that spoke volumes.
SLS/Slatkin.
Amy Porter (flute).
In the absence of a Slatkin Heldenleben, he conducts Strauss’s Salome; January 1988, Lyric Opera of Chicago…
The Gershwin encore was either Lullaby…
… or Walking the Dog (included in the following)…