An edited version of this review appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post - 16/7/07
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A summer evening, end-of-season concert may not be the first place you would look for musical heavyweights such as Beethoven and Schubert but the programme showed that the NSO can turn its hand just as successfully to the classical giants as it can to some of the more flamboyant showpieces featured earlier in the season.
Beethoven's Triple Concerto is a relative rarity: not surprising since it needs three soloists. The trio on Saturday evening comprised Jan Rautio (piano), Jane Gordon (violin) and Katherine Jenkinson (cello). Their performance achieved chamber music intimacy against the wider musical landscape supplied by the orchestra. It was a delight to observe how sensitively the soloists responded to each other and to their orchestral colleagues.
Schubert's 'Great C major' Symphony is a bit of a musical marathon and certainly conductor Derek Williams looked as if he had run one when he took his bow at the end. It is a work which can seem stodgy in the wrong hands but this performance was full of light and shade with plenty of air in the textures.
Equally fine playing emerged from Beethoven's Prometheus overture and Janacek's Adagio. The NSO's reputation for musical excellence clearly continues to flourish.