Irish Times critics give their verdict on recent art events
Temple Bar Trad Festival, Temple Bar, Dublin
Now in its third year, Temple Bar Trad has established itself as a knees-up with a difference. Although dependent on the sponsorship of a drinks company, it has managed to keep the punter's ear firmly trained on tunes and songs, many of which glistened in the dark during the weekend.
A long-time resident of New York, Dubliner Susan McKeown betrays none of her exile in her accent, but reveals it in her choice of material, which is often coloured by delicious melancholy and an inescapable longing for home. She can run a fine-tooth comb over the past and make it as intensely relevant to the present as any contemporary composition. Against the backdrop of Lindsey Horner's ever-purposeful double bass and Aidan Brennan's self-effacing guitar, McKeown's cavernous voice (bearing remarkably close kinship to that of Natalie Merchant) ached and echoed through the rekindled Woody Guthrie song, Gonna Get Through This World, borrowed from her Grammy award-winning collaboration with The Klezmatics.
McKeown's languid stage presence was rapidly countered by Gráda's cheesy, dontcha-just-love-us on-stage antics. Alan Doherty brings flute, a wagonload of original tunes and more than a tincture of charisma to the mix, while Nicola Joyce's vocals and bodhrán add vigour to an eclectic song selection stretching from a dogmatic rendering of Sonny Condell's Cooler at the Edgeto a gorgeous reading of Suzanne Vega's The Queen and the Soldier. Shades of Lúnasa abound, from double bass to duelling low whistles, although Gráda's rabid pace leaves little space to draw breath between the tunes.
Fiddle and concertina fuelled Niamh Ní Charra's headliner gig at Project, her original tunes marking her out as a musician to watch, with Deoraíocht An tSaighdiúraa particular standout.
Enda Scahill's banjo and mandolin were showstoppers on Saturday night, particularly on the quirky, klezmer-influenced O'Bannion Wake. With melodeon and accordion player Paul Brock, Scahill ricocheted through a set list that swung from the pedestrian ( Boys on the Hilltop/Monasteraden Fancy) to the stratospheric ( Poor Lisa Janeand Miss Monaghan's). At times, Ryan Molloy's piano accompaniment leaned dangerously close to Las Vegas, particularly in his florid reading of An Buachaill Caol Dubh.
Julie Fowlis and her band stilled the room in no time. Her equal facility with Scottish mouth music (puirt a beul), such as the sublime Hùg Air A' Bhonaid Mhòir, and visceral tunes delivered on drum-tight whistle were reminders of her unforced musical genius, despite her titanic battle to keep a bad flu at bay.
Sunday night's closing concert in the Olympia Theatre was an example of over-zealous programming. The father-and-daughter duo, Tommy and Siobhán Peoples, set the scene with a languorous gig which included, much to our surprise, a song from Tommy. Róisín Elsafty delivered a handful of sean-nós bombshells, and Jackie Daly stirred the mix with a fine Sliabh Luachra set, aided by Edel Fox and Paul de Grae.
Curtain-closers Mozaik were characteristically challenging and scintillating, their polyrhythms effortlessly straddling Appalachia, eastern Europe and the west coast of Co Clare.
Ultimately, though, the night reeked of a certain dilettantism that didn't serve the festival well: an abundance of flavours jostling for attention in a venue ill-suited to the task. Long may this festival nurture the cosier line-up, where time isn't at a premium and tunes can hang in the air for just a few moments longer. Siobhán Long
Concorde, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
Henryk Górecki - For You, Anne-Lill; Good Night.
Marta Ptaszynska - Mobile.
Contemporary music ensemble Concorde performed three all-Polish mini-programmes on Sunday, the final day of the National Gallery's special exhibition of paintings from Poland.
The two programmes I heard included pieces by Henryk Górecki (born 1933), whose reputation in Ireland rests almost entirely on some choral work and a chart-topping CD release in 1992 of his Symphony No 3 , "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs", with soprano Dawn Upshaw.
The symphony, composed in 1976, revealed the mature, spiritually serene Górecki 20 years on from writing serial-style orchestral music of such violence that even Pierre Boulez is supposed to have been shocked by it. The 12-minute For You, Anne-Lill, for flute and piano, was written in 1986 and shares many of the symphony's Górecki fingerprints: slow ostinatos of perhaps only three notes, endlessly repeated, beneath further repetitions of brief lyrical fragments. Depending on your frame of mind it could sound either like a duo practising a troublesome line or like a meditative mantra.
His Good Nightis similarly slow and thoughtful and based on the simplest ideas, but this time with the medium expanded by the presence of tam-tams and the human voice. The piece was written in 1989 following the death of Michael Vyner, artistic director of the London Sinfonietta (which had recorded the Symphony No 3), and grieves through piano and alto flute lines in hushed unison.
After a mid-point crescendo, the soprano gently introduces the line, "Good night . . . flights of angels sing thee to thy rest", from Hamlet. The gentle gonging of the tam-tams brings the piece to an other-worldly conclusion.
Altogether more varied is the 1975 Mobile, for two percussionists, by Marta Ptaszynska (born 1943). It features dialogues and altercations - some lively, some tranquil - between a wide range of pitched and non-pitched percussion in short movements based loosely on the alphabet, with much determined by the players themselves.
Two versions were given, with a third on offer when Concorde gives the Sundays at Noon concert at the Hugh Lane Gallery on February 10th.
The RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra will play Górecki's Symphony No 3 on Apr 25 at the National Concert Hall, Dublin Michael Dungan
Resurgam, Orchestra of Saint Cecilia/Duley, St Ann's Church, Dublin
Bach - Cantatas 130, 19, 149.
The three Michaelmas cantatas in this concert by the Orchestra of St Cecilia (OSC) called for an unusually adept choir - and they got one. On this, their first appearance in the current OSC series, the dozen trained voices of Resurgam darted through Bach's labyrinthine counterpoints with disciplined clarity and florid tone. The opening chorus of Cantata 19especially was a fireworks display of choral virtuosity.
In all three works, St Michael's engagement with the forces of evil is depicted by vigorous instrumentation, and the abundant contributions of the OSC's three trumpeters were as resilient as they were stylish.
Enjoying himself amid the martial din was bass Nigel Williams, who conjured up visions of the dragon with welling Wagnerian sway.
To perform on modern instruments, as the OSC does, takes already taxing vocal lines a semitone higher than Bach intended them, and Lynda Lee (soprano) and Robin Tritschler (tenor) faced the punishing extremities of their solos with determined athleticism. A reflective and moving aria in Cantata 19, however, gave Tritschler more opportunity to deal with the inner poetry of the notes.
Conductor Mark Duley's considerable experience of directing period-instrument performances of Bach's church music had telling effects on the playing of the OSC. An alert continuo group vividly punctuated the recitatives, a conscientiously integrated string sound accompanied the ariosos, and the wind obbligatos flowed with natural, easy freedom.
Particularly in the bass parts, articulation seemed to spring from a lively engagement with the music rather than from the mere application of principles. With this ever-present fillip, there could be no dull moments. Andrew Johnstone
