Irish Timeswriters review Lizzie Lavelle and The Vanishing of Emlycloughat Carne Golf Links, Belmullet, Mayo; Cooper, Carmody, Linehanat the NCH John Field Room, Dublin; the Shaun Davey Spectacularat the National Concert Hall; and Anjani Thomasat Tripod, Dublin.
Lizzie Lavelle and The Vanishing of Emlyclough
Carne Golf Links, Belmullet, Mayo
Viewed from the enclosure of a giant sand dune, the Mullet Peninsula stretches into distant mountain folds and a shimmering sea, the sight held between seven metre slopes like a pair of cupped hands. This is the setting for The Performance Corporation's latest site-specific work, a very tall tale of love divided in a fractious hinterland, and staged in what might be called a natural amphitheatre on the grounds of Carne Golf Links, or the most impressive bunker on earth.
"Ye may forget about your golf ball," says Eamonn Hunt, understandably, who plays a seanchai narrator named Sandman. Indeed, Tom Swift's play, its dialogue peppered with a Gaeltacht-sensitive cúpla focal, has another sport in mind. The people of Emlyclough north and Emlyclough south, two households both alike in dignity, play out their ancient grudge in a fantastical version of GAA.
How the game is played is beyond me; this being another restlessly physical and archly entertaining show from director Jo Mangan, the rules seem to be made up as they go along.
Although there are fine embellishments by designer Sinead O'Hanlon, suggesting a town worn away by bitter attrition and natural erosion, the set and lighting here are all supplied by God. Only tremendously big gestures and luminous archetypes will work in such a space.
To that end we get two sand-crossed lovers, Lizzie Lavelle (Lisa Lambe) and Michael Meenaghan (Paul Connaughton), star players for their respective parishes, whose love blossoms with expected speed and a more amusing violence.
Lambe channels more of the fearsome spirit of Pegeen Mike than the mush of a romantic lead, so that in the space of two scenes she performs a nasty foul on poor Connaughton, then kisses him passionately, and makes both gestures equally brutal.
That fiercely humorous approach is shared by Noni Stapleton, Cillian O'Donnachadha, and, most memorably, Niamh Daly and Stephen Swift, creating an ensemble well versed in ironic delivery, comic timing and imperturbable stunt work.
You come out of the dune smiling, buoyed by the notion that true love is like sand ("it gets everywhere") but dimly aware that misery too deepens like a coastal shelf, and, in the end, everything will be lost in the sands of time. - Peter Crawley
Cooper, Carmody, Linehan
NCH John Field Room, Dublin
Beethoven- Horn Sonata
Ysaÿe- Sonata Op 27 No 3 (Ballade)
Brahms- Horn Trio
A desire to play one of Brahms's most distinctive chamber works had brought together violinist Mia Cooper, horn player David Carmody and pianist Conor Linehan.
It proved a collaboration of seasoned yet colourful musicianship that was no less rewarding for the audience than for the performers themselves.
The opening Andante was on the leisurely side, its expressive dissonances indulged with gratifying retardations.
Though the Scherzo's intricacies were met with a discreet slackening of the pace, the finale went at a gallop - and a wild, bareback one at that.
While Cooper might have ceded just a little more prominence to Carmody in the Scherzo's central section, her gorgeous tone qualities ranged from fleece-like legatos in the Adagio to chafing, curt staccatos in the finale.
Linehan handled the extremely active piano part with characteristic sensitivity and sangfroid.
All three players communicated a strong, collective grasp of the composition as a whole.
Carmody had switched to a valve horn for the Trio, after the rare feat of performing Beethoven's Horn Sonata on a natural instrument.
For her solo turn, Cooper had chosen a one-movement, unaccompanied sonata by the Walloon virtuoso violinist Eugène Ysaÿe.
In what might have been the cadenza from some unwritten, late-romantic concerto, her concentrated reflectiveness and prodigious technical command yielded virtuosity without ostentation. - Andrew Johnstone
Shaun Davey Spectacular
National Concert Hall
After what the NCH's programme pithily describes as a spot of "compositional housekeeping" Shaun Davey's 1982 suite Granuailewas afforded the bells and whistles treatment from the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, with vocalist, Rita Connolly relishing the chance to dig deeper beneath the skin of the music than ever before.
The music of Granuaile, like the warrior queen it depicts, is not for the faint-hearted. Melodically challenging, stylistically abstruse, it doesn't so much coax as excavate the complexities of Grace O'Malley's escapades.
Connolly's voice is a richer, fuller thing of beauty than ever before, and she tackles the tragedy of Death Of Richard-an-Iarrainnand the airy weightlessness of Ripples In The Rockpoolwith equal grace. Davey, unusually for a composer, lent backing vocals which occasionally struggled for life against the strapping orchestral backdrop. Revisionism rarely garners such thunderous accolades so readily, but this incarnation of Granuaile was an ecstatic reminder of how one individual's vision can morph magically into so many other's reality.
The Brendan Voyageis another beast entirely, the first orchestral composition written for pipes. Liam O'Flynn's magisterial pipes, poised like a sunflower amid a prairie of (orchestral) poppies. From the introductory evocation of Brendan's first, tentative oar-raising in Brandon Creek, this was the ultimate lonesome boatman journeying into history,
O'Flynn's pipes tracing a route through the buff and filter of conductor Gavin Maloney's confident direction. With no navigational tools at his disposal bar the memory of finger and elbow in full flight, O'Flynn cut a solitary figure amid the jostling quavers and semi quavers of his orchestral compadres.
At times the disjuncture of traditional and classical was inevitable; particularly in the percussive dissonance that shaped Mykines Sound, Noel Eccles' grinding drum designs opposing the innate humility of the pipes.
Labradorrestored the equilibrium though, the solo pipes lament breathing a sigh of relief, the space between bag, chanter and full orchestra restored to an acceptable distance. A gloriously ambitious idea rendered anew for an audience. - Siobhán Long
Anjani Thomas
Tripod, Dublin
On Leonard Cohen's official website there is a charming story about how Anjani Thomas's latest album took shape.
Spying some hand-written notes on Cohen's desk with a fragment of lyric ("there's perfume burning in the air/bits of beauty everywhere") she asked him if she could have a go at it. Cohen replied: "You can have it for a minute or two, and then you have to return it." Following a quick dash to the studio, and a soulful, jazzy approach to the line, Cohen gave her free rein to go through his notebooks and pick out the lines that interested here.
In fairness, she can be forgiven for plundering Cohen's work; she has been his muse, lover and musical partner for some time, and can be heard on much of Cohen's work, including the iconic Hallelujah. Thomas's latest album, Blue Alert, was produced by Cohen, but she is not merely riding shotgun to his illustrious career. Thomas studied music in Berklee College of Music and has worked the unforgiving New York jazz circuit. Blue Alerthas been giving a rapturous reception.
Live, it's a combination as smooth as honey, as sweet as a nut. Her voice and band are perfectly in control, measured down to every last note. Unlike many solo artists, she doesn't attack the vocal and soak up all the solo space; she lets the musicians around her occupy the room within the songs, and it is beguiling to listen to. It is a full 40 minutes before anyone on stage looks in danger of breaking into a sweat and it is only with The Gypsy's Wifethat the pace picks up a notch, and the quality of the musicianship talks a stroll for all to see. The guitarist takes his time tuning up between songs and a spontaneous Q and A session breaks out; inevitably all roads lead to Cohen.
Towards the end of the set, one fan even comes up to the front of the stage and explains that he'd like an autograph but can't wait until the end because he has to catch his bus. Thomas obliges to her credit. - Laurence Mackin
