Sonata in F - Rosetti
Carlow Tune - Larchet
Variations on a Theme of Mozart - Glinka
Spring Fancies - Harty
Whirlwind - Salzedo
The Crown of Ariadne - R. Murray Schafer
Stylish, communicative playing made Cliona Doris's harp recital at the RDS last Monday a worthwhile experience. Those qualities are all the more important for an instrument which, until the 20th century, had rarely attracted the attention of significant composers, and whose most distinguished achievements lay in domestic and oral traditions very different from the modern concert hall.
The charming side of harp music was represented in a sonata by Mozart's contemporary Franz Rosetti, and Glinka's early Variations on a Theme of Mozart. The instrument's folk traditions were evoked in Larchet's elegant Carlow Tune - De bharr na gCnoc, and its move into the concert hall by Harty's Spring Fancies, Tailleferre's Sonata and Salzedo's Whirlwind.
All these pieces, which made up the first half of the concert, were played from memory, and showed a strong command of colour. Cliona Doris was excellent at sustaining long melodic lines, as in the second movement of the Harty, but was not as good with the clean timing and precise accentuation needed in periodic, closed phrasing. This affected the Rosetti above all; but it was an intermittent problem elsewhere.
The second half of the concert was devoted to The Crown of Ariadne by the Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer (b. 1933). Scored for harp, percussion (played by the harpist) and pre-recorded tape, this six-movement suite has a strong theatrical aspect, which Cliona Doris captured with undemonstrative yet effective deliberation.
