Meath Pastorale - Duff
Suite for Strings - Trimble
Inishlacken - Bill Whelan
Serenade in C - Tchaikovsky
Dublin City University Arts Week ended on Saturday night with an impressive, well-programmed concert by the Irish Chamber Orchestra.
In the main hall of the Hub, Fionnuala Hunt directed from the front desk, and all four works on the programme, three of them by Irish composers, drew on folk materials.
Meath Pastorale was composed by Arthur Duff (b. 1899) in 1944. It is a short, elegant, single-movement set of variations. Joan Trimble, who died last year, wrote her Suite for Strings in 1955, when she was around 40. Its ambitious, rugged counterpoint and occasional folksy ideas are closer to early Tippett than to its composer's former teacher, Vaughan Williams. There is an individual voice here, and it is a pity that Trimble more or less abandoned composition just a few years later.
At least as individual is Bill Whelan's Inishlacken, which was premiΦred last year by the ICO. Its three movements are full of the composer's characteristic asymmetrical rhythms, and cleverly exploit the distinct styles of the soloists, Fionnuala Hunt and Zoe Conway. The former plays, on the whole, the more classical role and the latter, who is currently All-Ireland Senior Champion, plays the traditional part as to the manner born. Yet the most striking aspect of this piece, as with Whelan's music generally, is the tight relationship between form and material, which far surpasses that of his Irish contemporaries in mixed-style music of this kind.
The concert ended with the Serenade in C by Tchaikovsky, the indisputable king of using folk materials on a symphonic scale. It was, he said, written from the heart; and this account, which featured full technical command, perfect speeds and airy phrasing, was itself full of heart. An impressive, moving performance.
