Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin
Honegger – Sonatine
Glière – 8 Pieces Op 39
Kodály – Duo Op 7
A VIOLIN-CELLO duo is half a string quartet, despite which, repertoire for the combination is limited. So it was good that these works received an airing at the hands of wife-and-husband Duo Chagall, Gillian Williams (violin) and Arun Rao (cello).
The three pieces were composed between 1909 and 1932. The best is the Kodály Duo completed in 1915 – not as personal and moving as the
Solo Cello Sonata
from the same period, but a piece with real depth and complete two-part mastery. Kodály wrote it during his hasty, unscheduled return journey from Switzerland to Budapest when the outbreak of the first World War abruptly closed all hotels and interrupted a holiday in Zermatt. Stuck for a few days at a border village, he could find no manuscript paper and wrote the duo in a school copy-book.
Williams and Rao were at their best in this music, tapping into both its intensity and energy. It was harder to know what to connect with in the 8 Pieces by Glière. His career was more centred on academia than on composition, and this 1909 suite is a lightweight, slightly fusty hodge-podge whose potential charms never surfaced.
Nor was it always clear where to look in Honegger’s 1932
Sonatine
. The Swiss Parisian was quirky and eclectic and sometimes humorous, features that didn’t emerge much. That said, the two nicely delivered the calm and richness of the slow sections in the second movement.
