All the hotheaded debate in traditional music circling around the merits of tradition versus innovation amounted to little more than idle chatter at this concert.
Belfast cellist, Neil Martin rendered prosaic and jaded arguments redundant with his four movement suite, No Tongue Can Tell, a divine challenge for pipes, whistle and concert orchestra.
It was as if the audience was being plamásed into position by the Concert Orchestra's reading of Arthur Knox Duff's suite, Echoes of Georgian Dublin.
Initially sedate and genteel, it rose to a triumphant peak for the closing Rigaudon, buoyed by conductor David Brophy's subtle exploration of the sinewy threads that bound it together as it strode from the poignant largo of the third movement to the finale.
Neil Martin flexed his muscles initially in the heady company of his regular conspirators, The West Ocean String Quartet (WOSC).
With guest viola player, Alan McClure stepping in valiantly in place of Ken Rice (audaciously missing in action in Carnegie Hall for the night), WOSC strode magnificently through an eclectic set from Martin's tender tribute to the premature passing of childhood innocence, Unwrapping Dreams, to the sombre, reflective Some Vague Utopia, Martin's tribute to WB Yeats. Ebbing and flowing with masterful ease, WOSC continue to forge new ground, navigating a vast and gloriously unmapped musical territory with impish glee.
No Tongue Can Tell was an able cornerstone to the evening's repertoire. Inspired by a highly personal tale of tragedy, Martin has created a challenging and provocative space in which Liam O'Flynn's pipes breathed deep of an oxygen that is rarely found lurking in that no man's land where tradition and classical music collide.
At times, Martin's orchestration was utterly cinematic, strings and percussion melding seamlessly with pipes in one unified evocation of a tale of sorrow and loss; elsewhere, the pipes strained at the leash, as though confined in some strange way by the skeletal structure of the suite. For all that, they thrived in the face of the challenge, as though exercising muscles and tendons that rarely get stretched by the tradition's more established tunes.
O'Flynn's unquestionable delight in the music was palpable.
Exchanging pipes for whistle with fluid ease, he wrestled and ultimately gelled seamlessly with his orchestral consorts. A night to whet the appetite for a repeat performance, preferably sooner rather than later. - Siobhán Long
The Chemical Brothers - The Point
The vitality of dance music may be under threat these days, but nobody appears to have told the Chemical Brothers. Other heavy-hitters who helped to shape club culture in the 1990s are either not what they used to be, (Fatboy Slim, Daft Punk,) or simply are no more, (Underworld, Orbital).
But as a teeming mass spin their hands or swat at invisible bees while shirtless, and others show unnatural interest in their glow-sticks, time appears to have stood still for Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons. All hail the champions of big beat!
Roving spotlights and mists of ultraviolet swirl gently around the Point, before the early languor is shattered by familiar thuds, a sugary synth and the trademark sample of Hey Girl Hey Boy. The trusted, arena-friendly concoction of frenetic dance rhythms, spiky rock attitude and playful hip-hop can make you forget just how quaint the cry of "Superstar DJs" has recently become.
But as monochrome images and trancy visuals chase each other across huge screens and the Bollywood string sample of Galvanise tumbles breathlessly into a thorax-cracking Block Rockin' Beats, there are many things you forget at a Chemical Brothers gig: the date, your inhibitions and the fact that other forms of music exist.
Still, for all the blissed-out charms of Star Guitar and the tireless Bez impersonations of the crowd, distractions become easier to entertain. The Chemicals summon up yet more guest vocalists from a hard-drive somewhere, and incite another merciless crescendo to rearrange your internal organs. But is this difficult to achieve from behind their Tardis-like consoles, their arms raised meaningfully in the murky half-light? And will the continuous oscillations of The Private Psychedelic Reel ever stop? Whatever doubts arise in dance music's uncertain times, Rowlands and Simons strut and bounce regardless, secure in the knowledge that their beats are big enough to look after themselves. - Peter Crawley
Mary O'Sullivan (soprano), Dara MacMahon (mezzo), Eunan McDonald (baritone), Deborah Kelleher (piano) - Bank of Ireland Arts Centre
Although advertised as an evening of song, it was stage music from 18th-century Vienna to 20th-century Broadway that provided the programme for this concert by four young Irish artists.
Mary O'Sullivan, who will sing First Lady in Opera Ireland's Magic Flute next month, displayed a polished technique.
Her well-tuned soprano coped well, if not always fully accurately, with all sorts of coloratura demands, ranging from the vitriolic spleen of Mozart's Queen of Night to the manic pyrotechnics of Bernstein's Cunigonde. In less frenetic pieces, such as Offenbach's Barcarole and Gershwin's Summertime, she offered some beautiful legato singing. Everything was phrased intelligently and her high notes were all securely delivered.
Her partner in the Offenbach was Dara MacMahon, who had earlier given an impressively vibrant performance of Isabella's Cruda sorte from Rossini's
L'italiana in Algerie. MacMahon's warm mezzo-soprano is still short of a few notes at the bottom, but her top notes are admirably full and she has a vivid stage presence. A tendency to swallow words, especially when singing in English, lessened the impact of two Jerome Kern numbers and, regrettably, lost us the droll punch lines in Kurt Weill's Story of Jenny.
Clear diction was one of Eunan McDonald’s strongest assets. His focused baritone was pleasant in the centre, but thinned out at either end of his range. He showed little sense of line, and was content to follow the pulse of the accompaniment rather than phrase smoothly across it. In this respect he was much better in the jaunty music of Mozart’s Papageno and Gershwin’s Porgy than in any of the romantic pieces he sang.
Deborah Kelleher, a pianist who was equally at home in all of the different musical idioms visited, was an inspiring partner to the singers throughout the evening. - John Allen
