Irish Times reviewers give their verdicts on recent musical events in Dublin and Belfast.
Mark Knopfler/The Point, Dublin
Peter Crawley
Guitar George, rhythm guitarist for the happily ignored jazz band The Sultans of Swing, knows his way around the instrument, but "he doesn't want to make it cry or sing".
Never swayed by fame or fashion, Mark Knopfler must have a certain respect for the character he created while still slinging his guitar for Dire Straits.
In one regard, though, Knopfler the solo artist is completely different. A born mumbler but extroverted player, he would gladly let his guitar trill, belt and yodel for him.
It was ever thus with Knopfler. The lyric of Why Aye Man has to claw its way out from his throat, and, in places, the sweet intent of Romeo and Juliet now crackles out like an amorous phone call from a heavy-breather.
But if he sings as though under duress, to the delight of his greying fans Knopfler plays like there's time to kill.
In a set that interleaves the bright rock 'n' roll of Dire Straits with the maturing blues and folk rock of Knopfler's work since, we never quite reach a musical balance. Epic solos from his back catalogue whip around like tempests while later licks weave in and out of songs like a gentle breeze.
A fleet footed Walk of Life cedes oddly to the mellow drag of What It Is. And after a showboating Sultans of Swing, Knopfler even sits down for a tea break.
Such languid stretches and sudden bolts of energy persist. Last year's Song for Sonny Liston sounds bracingly succinct, while it's hard not to check your watch after the tenth enervating minute of 1980's Telegraph Road.
Why should some of the audience fidget, while most settle in comfortably for the long haul? Money for Nothing's brilliant, chunky riff may explain the divide. "I want my MTV," was intended to be its acerbic hook. Today it sounds like the catch call of an impatient generation.
Culwick Choral Society/Armstrong NCH, Dublin
Andrew Johnstone
Brahms - Haydn Variations, Requiem
The hundred voices of the Culwick Choral Society were not intimidated by the combined weight of a large orchestra and the NCH orgain their performance of Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem.
Guest conductor Mark Armstrong was sympathetic to the work's difficulties, and tackled them head on. If this meant sacrificing a degree of lyricism here and there, it was certainly to the choir's advantage to have the music kept so decisively on the move.
They sang in German, though with noticeably non-native accents. And their reluctance to modify certain vowels led to tightness in the higher reaches.
But they kept up heroic efforts to sustain the characteristically long notes and phrases, and were always alert to Armstrong's carefully timed gestures of encouragement.
Bass Andrew Slater's granite-faced contemplations of eternity were a fair match for Brahms's heavy instrumentation. So too was soprano Franzita Whelan, though her unique solo movement would have benefitted from lighter touches in the orchestra and chorus.
As you'd expect from Armstrong, who is the conductor of the Army No 1 Band, the wind playing was well coordinated both in the Requiem and in the staunchly played Haydn Variations. With two scores so rich in wood and brass combinations, this was a notable strength in a strong concert.
Ulster Orchestra/Thierry Fischer/Waterfront Hall, Belfast
Dermot Gault
Dukas - The Sorcerer's Apprentice.
Ravel - Piano Concerto in G.
Berlioz - Symphonie fantastique.
The final concert in a subscription series is an opportunity for an orchestra's principal conductor to play to his strengths, and Thierry Fischer's great strengths are his enthusiasm and vitality.
He was obviously enjoying himself in the Berlioz, making the most of the music's colour and drama, capturing the flexible febrility of the first movement and the excitement of the last. The slow movement presents the work's hardest interpretative challenge; when it works, the exposed string lines near the opening have a yearning ecstatic emptiness, but if the movement is taken slowly it can seem endless rather than timeless, while if it's taken quickly it's just matter-of-fact.
Fischer contrived to keep the music moving while allowing it a sense of space, but the delicate string figurations which give the latter part of the movement so much of its feeling were hurried out of the way.
In the Dukas, Fischer's steady approach was right in principle; successful performances give the details time to tell and allow the tension to mount without forcing the pace.
This performance was well balanced and clearly carefully rehearsed, but for whatever reason - perhaps the orchestra just wasn't warmed up - the tension did not mount as it might have done.
Frédéric-François Guy certainly made details count in the Ravel, and if the melting trills of the first movement cadenza could have floated more dreamily, the slow movement was touching, and the Ulster Orchestra's accompaniment, a few odd fluffs apart, was idiomatic.
