THE RSNO'S concert on Saturday night masqueraded as a Valentine's concert, though, from another perspective, it could have been a Romantic concert from the Raymond Gubbay stable of promotions.

Without the livery of either of these species, it was simply an opportunity to let the orchestra, with its assistant conductor Christian Kluxen, off its heavyweight leash for one evening to perform a programme of popular classics which, predictably, drew a large audience.

Even so, there was great music in the programme. Any criticism of Mozart is not just bad judgment, more a criminal offence. And in any event, the Marriage of Figaro Overture, which went like the wind, is a great masterpiece as well as the perfect musical timer to cooking a soft-boiled egg.

And there were other proper masterpieces on the programme, though in Ravel's La Valse Christian Kluxen was a wee bit sectional in his treatment of the music, not quite catching the full, cataclysmic horror of its climactic implosion.

Richard Strauss's 1944 Suite from Der Rosenkavalier is a fantastic concoction, one which detonated the RSNO in all its blazing glory, with all those boiling waltzes and a heart-wrenching instrumental version of the last-act Trio for the three female principals.

And, along with the mandatory melting moments, including a lump of La Boheme and Mascagni's beautifully played Intermezzo, we also had hot-ticket Simone Dinnerstein playing Mozart's 21st Piano Concerto with wonderfully dry articulation, if a rather soulless interpretation (minority opinion, I suspect) which featured a first movement cadenza that hovered between idiosyncrasy and eccentricity. But not a bad show.

HHH