Irish Times critics review performances from Solomon Burke; Miriam Murphy & Frances Kelleher and Paul McNamara & Grainne Dunne

Solomon Burke at Vicar Street, Dublin

The signs were not good. Just think of all the legendary figures from pop, rock and soul who have arrived in Ireland over the past 10-15 years, hyped to heaven, only to stumble less than three songs into their sets. The bitter realisation that their better days are behind them is only the first disappointing step out of the venue.

When Solomon Burke came shuffling on stage, covered by a fancy Disney-style king's robe, guided by a man in a white tuxedo to his throne, which was flanked by rose-filled vases, alarm bells started to ring.

Then he opened his mouth and sang - and if it wasn't the one of the most glorious sounds you've ever heard. For the next hour and a bit, Burke cooked and simmered, singeing the faithful and investing faith in the doubters with material that spanned the decades.

Classic Burke hits such as If You Need Me, Down In The Valley and Just Out Of Reach (Of My Two Open Arms) were rendered as if for the first time, despite the fact that he's been singing them for nigh on 40 years. Polished professionalism combined with a determination to deliver the goods in a spiritually cleansing manner seemed the order of the evening. But there was fun, too: handing out the roses for the ladies, salacious asides - nothing too saucy, just the right side of rude - and the odd nod to consummate cabaret.

Ultimately, though, it was a night to celebrate the man and his music: the body might be a tad infirm, but the voice is still there, full of refined diction, pulsing with tension and release. The greatest of the great 1960s soul men? Not even King Solomon could reserve judgment on that question.

Tony Clayton-Lea

Miriam Murphy & Frances Kelleher at the Bank of Ireland, Dublin

Singers take the trouble to prepare songs in Swedish, so the inclusion of four by Sibelius in this recital was as welcome as it was unexpected. Soprano Miriam Murphy sang them with understanding and delicacy, but she too readily yields to the temptation of making a climax as big as possible, which leads to a distortion of tone and a loss of the rapport between words and music that she has so carefully and sympathetically created in the lead-up to the big moment.

It is often more effective to sing less loudly than one can, for the impression of power held in reserve makes outbursts of emotion more convincing. That said, I have nothing but admiration for the way she shaped the course of the tragic Saf, Saf, Susa ("Sedge, sedge, quiver") and the ballad-like The Tryst. The two other songs were quite fanciful and sung with the requisite lightness.

Six Songs by Grieg (Op 48, all in German) were most appealing, particularly the softly sung Dereinst, Gedanke Mein, and the call of the nightingale in No 4 was delivered with the most beguiling sweetness.

Four Songs by Bellini were characteristically tuneful, but some of them sounded more operatic than can have been intended; not being excerpts from operas, a more restrained approach would have been to their benefit. One of them, however, Dolente Imagine Di Filli Mia, was exemplary in its combination of emotion and control.

In all these songs, pianist Frances Kelleher was a discreet and supportive accompanist, quietly making her presence felt, equally at home in the above, in the three songs by Richard Strauss and in the six songs that ended the recital, all well known, by Herbert Hughes, Hamilton Harty, Thomas Moore and others.

Douglas Sealy

Paul McNamara & Grainne Dunne at the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin

^{Three Lieder - Meyerbeer}

^{Au Die Ferne Geliebts - Beethoven}

^{Tre ConzoniJan Muller -Wieland}

Meyerbeer made his name as a composer of very grand operas. The three quite intimate texts in this recital were treated in a rather grand manner, as if they had been intended to form part of a dramatic scene; very effective they would have been, too. The first was a setting of Heine's Die Rose, Die Lilie, Die Taube, Die Sonne, best known in Schumann's setting and likely to remain so, for Meyerbeer turns the lover's words into a demagogue's rhetoric, a style to which they are not essentially suited.

Nevertheless, these lieder are not mere curiosities and have a strong life of their own, well embodied in this performance.

Beethoven's song cycle To The Distant Beloved is notable for the way it infuses the rather banal poems with a melodic vigour that negates, if it does not entirely remove, their sentimentality. Tenor Paul McNamara sang them in an appropriately illustrative manner, varying tone and colour to match their changing moods, and he was well supported at the piano by Grainne Dunne. Her handling of the transitional passages between the songs was praiseworthy.

Jan Muller-Wieland was born in 1966 and has written seven operas and four symphonies. I had not heard of him, but on the evidence of the Tre Canzoni he is unusually talented. His settings of three brief texts by Michelangelo convey all the suppressed fury of the sculptor's poetry; each sentence is taken in short phrases, highlighted by vocal silences that are filled by chords that die away so slowly they seem to struggle to form new melodies. This performance was a passionate, totally involving proclamation.

Douglas Sealy