Prelude and Fugue - Britten
Limena - Ian Wilson
Piano Concerto in A K414 - Mozart
Symphony No 1 - Haydn
A quick glance at the score will tell you that for the performers, there's nothing easy about Limena, Ian Wilson's new concerto for piano and strings. However, as revealed in Thursday's premiere by Hugh Tinney and the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the concerto inhabits an unusually subdued world, less a contest of wills between soloist and orchestra than a meditative, joint exploration of half-lit colours and delicate sonorities.
The composer launches with a weave of octave-punctuated piano lines, the strings creeping in stealthily to borrow flickers of material from the piano part and sounding re mote through the use of metal mutes; it's a captivating effect. As with any stream of consciousness, there is a risk that the termination will be jarring, and this one is, in spite of advance preparation and a clear attempt at a gentle wrapping-up. Perhaps that's how the composer wants it to be in what is the most impressive work I've heard from him.
Britten's 1943 Prelude and Fugue for 18 strings was written as a 10th birthday present for the Boyd Neel Orchestra, and the ICO clearly relished the opportunities for individual and collective display. Hugh Tinney was in mostly plain-speaking mode, the orchestra intimately supportive, in Mozart's Concerto in A, K414 and Haydn's First Symphony, bracingly bright and upbeat, made a nicely contrasted foil to wrap up a stimulating programme.
The ICO is touring this concert to Cork (tonight), Portmagee (tomorrow), Sligo (Wednes day), Tullamore (Thursday), Dundalk (Saturday 13th), and IMMA Dublin (Sunday 14th)
