Owen Lorigan's lunch-time piano recital at the National Concert Hall's John Field Room last week was welcome for its presentation of recent music from Ireland and its fearless approach to technical challenge.
Surely it was significant that the most complete performances were of the three works played from memory - the works which presented the greatest technical and, probably, interpretative demands.
Despite some blurring of rhythmic detail, Lorigan conveyed the shape and manic energy of Triorchic Blues, which Gerald Barry wrote for the 1991 GPA Dublin International Piano Competition.
Copland's Variations (1931) were beautifully coloured and line-driven, and variations were impeccably shaped into groups. The gritty playing called for occasionally here was a more consistent feature of Prokofiev's Sarcasms (1916), and even though this performance tended to overemphasise the music's quirky aspects, the result was vivid.
In the rest of the programme Lorigan's command of colour stood out rather more strongly than his individualisation of each piece. Siobhan Cleary's Etudes 1-3 (1996) are studies in compositional as well as piano technique; Kevin Volans's virtuosic March (1996) is oddly, but intriguingly unlike a march; Ann Hoban's Solo Piano Piece No. 1 (1995), which was receiving its first performance, is a study in linear textures, and the slow motion of Deirdre McKay's evocative Time, Shining (1997) is inspired by a frozen winter landscape.
In all of these Lorigan held one's attention. Nevertheless, it felt as if there was more to some of the music than we actually heard.
