Irish Times writers review the Fountains of Wayne at the Ambassador, Rigoletto at the NCH, the NSO at the NCH and the Ulster Orchestra at the Ulster Hall.
Fountains of Wayne Ambassador, Dublin
Tony Clayton-Lea
Fountains of Wayne occupy an enviable if somewhat ambiguous middle ground in current rock music. Overnight (moderate) sensations after 10 years of circling around the fringes of commercial acceptance, the US band is the closest pop/punk will possibly ever come to having their own Steely Dan.
Wholly literate, self-referential and possessing in Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger, a pair of songwriters that know the difference between polyrhythms and Polly Harvey, Fountains of Wayne have the songs to take them into the Big Time League. Yet their songs are about minor league real people, not the grandiose, virtually fairytale enlargement of issues such as love and life.
Therein lies the rub: does the band jettison a decade of cult fandom by broadening its musical and lyrical base to appeal to the masses, or does it just continue to do what it does and hope for the best?
The major thing in their favour is that they're probably the least angry punk/pop band in the world. While not exactly singing songs of wholesome sweetness and light, Fountains of Wayne highlight the minor quibbles of living fast and lonely in the here and now: the man in Bright Future In Sales has a veritable Sword of Damocles hanging over his head, ready to cut it off if the numbers don't add up; Hackensack's former classmate of an LA-based model/movie star is sad voyeur personified; Hey Julie's office drone is a man so much in love his work - and his life within it - seems pointless; Leave The Biker's trodden-upon cuckold doesn't have the nerve to wrench his dream girl away from the arms of a man with "tattoo scars all over his face."
If there's a common thread it's that the people Fountains of Wayne sing of are one step away from calling The Samaritans or doing something that will make for nasty reading in newspapers. The button that flicks them from humanity to something less is the button that Fountains of Wayne prefer not to press. Nice guys, then, and also graduates of the School of Classy Pop Melodies. We really could do with more of their kind around.
Rigoletto
National Concert Hall
John Allen
The plot of Verdi's Rigoletto is a mix of dissipation, superstition and thwarted vengeance. There is also a deal of cynicism which, in the case of the eponymous jester, is softened only by his love for his daughter.
Mark Holland, who sang the title role in Lyric Opera's production, was a moving father in the duets with that daughter. Elsewhere, carelessness with note values and a general disdain for Verdi's line, not to mention a too-modern hairstyle, nullified the impact of his characterisation.
Nicholas Ransley's Duke of Mantua was about as sexually dangerous as a Botticelli cherub, and his gentle tenor voice was barely audible in the third row of the balcony. A pity, since he sang stylishly, with good musical awareness and impeccable phrasing.
Sandra Oman, by contrast, offered a fully rounded character, both vocally and dramatically. Her opening phrases were a mite fluttery, but she rallied quickly and thereafter maintained a steady flow of secure lyric soprano singing. Her coloratura in "caro nome" was neatly negotiated, and she conveyed a genuine feeling of pathos in her death scene.
The two assassins were strongly cast, with Sarah Helsby Hughes's warm mezzo contrasting effectively with Mark Cole's incisive bass. There were strong contributions from a trio of courtiers, as well as from the male chorus. But Damian Smith, as Monterone, lacked impact in his delivery of the fateful curse.
Vivian Coates's direction was strong on ensemble grouping, weak on personal interplay. Gilda's scenes with both father and seducer were conducted at arms' length, with no sense of intimacy until the closing pages.
David Jones conducted at mainly brisk speeds that kept the action moving along well, but he lost out in a scrambled vengeance cabaletta at the end of Act 2 and a storm trio that lacked frisson.
Kempf, RTÉ NSO/Yuasa
NCH, Dublin
Michael Dervan
Takemitsu - From me flows what you call Time.
Beethoven - Piano Concerto No 4.
Saint-Saëns - Organ Symphony.
Classical music audiences are said to be a conservative bunch. Yet they show a strong affection for revolutionary works. Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto up-ended the rules of concerto writing in 1806 by transferring the first statement from the orchestra to the soloist, a procedure so daring that not many composers have followed suit.
The pianist opens with a quietly poetic statement, and the orchestra's first contribution begins at such an angle that the whiff of unexpected vistas remains strong even two centuries later. The second movement is if anything even more remarkable, with a contrast of sharply-articulated imperiousness from the orchestra and melting inward reflection from the piano constituting a dialogue that somehow never fails to startle.
You might think that conservative listeners would want to experience the shock value of this music in a way that's carefully contained. But the response to Freddy Kempf's performance with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra on Friday suggested otherwise.
Kempf took nothing for granted in his quicksilver account of this work. His playing was the opposite of routine, with a frequent flashing brilliance of finger in the passage work, a fondness for sharp sculpting of virtuoso flourishes, and much reweighting of balances between the hands, burying secondary material to heighten what he chose to highlight.
Beethoven's pupil Carl Czerny has left a description of Beethoven's playing of this work as being mischievous. I'm not sure I'd go that far in describing Kempf's music-making, but he played with rare freedom while respecting the unusual sense of poetry that imbues this concert. Takuo Yuasa's accompaniment in the concerto was at times a bit tiptoe-ish, but he seemed fully in tune with the hovering, sensual impressionism of Toru Takemitsu's Dreamtime of 1981, a Japanese response to an Australian aboriginal belief.
Like Beethoven, Saint-Saëns plays teasingly with his listeners' expectations.
The traditional four movements are metamorphosed into two, and in addition to the organ which gives the work its nickname there is an elaborately rippling part for piano duet.
Even more striking is the array of techniques through which Saint-Saëns transforms quite mundane thematic material into something which shimmers with inner vitality.
Yuasa's handling of the work was both sensitive and robust, and the organ part was played in style by David Adams.
Ulster Orchestra - Thierry Fischer
Ulster Hall, Belfast
Dermot Gault
Beethoven - Symphony No 8.
Weber - Piano Concerto No 2. Beethoven - Symphony No 6.
Historically Informed Performance has come a long way from the scrawny strings and blatant brass, the choppy phrasing and the feeling of hurry which so often marred performances of the classics which sought an authentic approach back in the 1980s.
Thierry Fischer's "Pastoral", which continues the Ulster Orchestra's ongoing Beethoven cycle, was brisk, clear-textured and rhythmical enough to satisfy anyone, but there was a natural ease in the playing and a warmth in the string tone that was worlds away from the acerbic Beethoven offered by some performers.
The first two movements went especially well, the Scene at the Brook flowing quickly but expressively, and with the "feeling for nature" Mahler felt that conductors should aspire to in this music.
The Eighth likewise began with a spring in its step, and a lightness and charm which seemed at one time to have departed from performances of this composer's work. If in later movements the response to the music became generalised, accents in the first movement coda were tellingly delivered.
But for charm it would be hard to beat the Weber concerto. Ronald Brautigam played its florid roulades with a pearly tone and sought real depth of feeling in the slow movement.
