If anything is likely to get patrons of the National Arts Centre Orchestra to re new next season, it will be concerts like

the one Franz-Paul Decker, the ensembl e's principal guest conductor, is offering in the NAC Opera this week. Decker always has a way with music of the 19th century and is in his element thi s week. The concert opens with Rossini's Il Signor Bruschino Overture , continues with t he Beethoven Piano Concerto in C, Op. 15 and closes with the Tchaikovsky Suite N o. 1 in d, Op. 43 . This is repertoire in which Decker shines and the performanc e Wednesday evening was no exception. Things started a bit shakily in the Overture when the cellos and basses did not quite get together in unison passages and there were some moments, at the outset , when it seemed that things might get off the rails, generally. But once that hurdle was overcome, the performance raced dizzily to a delightful conclusion, giving the orchestra's woodwinds a chance to shine and giving the s trings, particularly the second violins, a chance to show off the wide variety o f sound they are capable of mustering when prodded. The Beethoven Concerto that followed was given a robust performance, one that suggested that conductor and s oloist, Brazilian-born Jose Fegalhi, were of a single mind where its rough humor was concerned. Feghali is a true virtuoso. He is one of those pianists who seem to be blessed w ith 20 fingers on each hand, each a highly skilled missile capable of hitting no tes in all directions with laser accuracy. He blasted through the first movement with a wide range of tone quality and volu me, displaying all his stuff like a peacock on the strut. The music could have b een by Weber or Thalberg, for all the rushing about. Feghali even chose the longest of the cadenzas Beethoven composed for the first movement, one that runs on so long you begin to feel it was composed under the i nfluence of opium. He made this the focal point and all else paled into insignif icance. The finale took off at a crazy tempo, which both pianist and orchestra sustained without generating a drop of sweat. In all, it was an astonishing display, not what one usually gets or expects in the music of Beethoven. Decker matched the pianist at every turn. But it was in the Tchaikovsky Suite that Decker and the orchestra seemed truly i nspired. The work is rarely performed because it can seem so episodic as to beco me meaningless. Not in Decker's hands! The long first movement, with its tragic overtones, became an emotional drama, o peratic in its dimensions and filled with hints of secrets untold. For Decker, t here is no ambiguity. The story is clear from the very outset. The movements that followed, rather than being anti-climactic, were embroideries on the initial emotional theme. It would have been easy to imagine a story line to carry the performance from opening to its closing measures. Tchaikovsky probably had his own scenario in mind, but the important thing was t he music made brilliant sense.

The orchestra, too, seemed carried away by these flights of imagination and the sound it produced was more ample, more satisfying than I have heard from ensembl es twice its size. This was a concert to remember and made a perfect closer to the NAC Orchestra's current season. Those with tickets for the repeat performance this evening have a treat in store.