A lot hung upon the delivery last night of Henning Kraggerud, whom I last witnessed leading performances of Strauss’s Metamorphosen and some of his own music at the head of a mine in Svalbard: he was announced at the beginning of the concert as the Irish Chamber Orchestra’s new artistic partner, following the likes of another instrumentalist-composer, Jörg Widmann, and fellow violinist Thomas Zehetmair. So did he triumph? Beyond wildest expectations.
You could even have called this performance of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons a concert staging. Introducing each concerto with a charming mixture of Nordic modesty and sheer good-humoured exuberance, Kraggerud set the company high dramatic asks, and from the start transfigured a popular masterpiece with stamping, dancing, even a star role as a tipsy participant in the Bacchic revels of “Autumn”.
Not to everyone’s taste, perhaps, and it might not have worked so well without the ICO strings, led by the splendid Katherine Hunka, joining in the semi-spontaneous theatrics (only cellos, double basses and harpsichord - with spare but haunting elaborations from David Gerrard in the drinkers' kip - standing). Kraggerud joins hands with the visceral but still spot-on music making of fellow Norwegian Bjarte Eike - ths could have been a country alehouse session - and Finn Pekka Kuusisto, now collaborating so excitingly with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra. 
It may be one of the most overplayed works in the repertoire, but The Four Seasons can sound as fresh as the year it was published (1725, 300 years ago), which has been the case with the three performances I've heard live, all in recent times. This was the most transformative of them all: no movement sounded as one remembered it, several prefaced by some wacky rustic tuning-up or a "one and two and three and". Kraggerud's febrile movement never admitted a note out of place or a pitch out of true.
As for the companion pieces in between, Kraggerud composes from the heart, and if that means more than a touch of neo-romanticism, so be it; we're a million miles from the empty gestures of Max Richter. Victimae Paschali, composed for a friend entering the priesthood aged 60 and apt for the days leading up to Good Friday, starts with what sounds like late-Sibelius writing for string ensemble, and proceeds unpredictably but poignantly. There's also a vocal version with the Latin words, beautifully sung on YouTube by treble Aksell Rykkvin. 
Like Vivaldi's concertos, none of Kraggerud's work outstays its welcome: between "Summer" and "Autumn" came the "five movements in five minutes" of Variations Suite, a perfect duo between Kraggerud and the ICO's principal cellist, Aoife Nic Athlaoich, essentially playing Cinderella as well as joining with Kraggerud to characterise the two stepsisters (in 5/4) and a witches' dance (after the ball, don't ask why).
Last of the three recent pieces was the biggest, and the most emotional: given news of his ICO appointment, Kraggerud decided to steal a march on a Scandinavian world premiere and share The Last Rose Beneath a Star, conjoining the Irish tune Thomas Moore set as "The Last Rose of Summer" with a more melancholy song of his own, placing it all in a cosmic context (audience members were invited to write words to the personal melody). This had a distinctly Norwegian sensibility as filtered through Grieg (whose "The Last Spring" in its string setting is, of course, one of the most heartrending miniatures of all). If everything became a bit early-20th-century-rhapsodic before the quiet close, there's no denying that Kraggerud writes perfectly and gratefully for strings. Expect some startling collaborations over the next three years.
