It wasn't just a neat concert-title - Crash Does the Canon - but the programme made for good, varied listening, and was revealing for showing how living composers have adapted old techniques.
There were some fascinating pairings. Bach's Ricercare a 3 from The Musical Offering was followed by Jurgen Simpson's Ricercare (2001) for pre-recorded tape, which is descended from the Bach via Webern's 1934 arrangement. Variation 21 from Bach's Gold- berg Variations was followed by another tape reworking, Judith Ring's Goldberg Varno.21 - Canonealla Settima.
Ring's ghostly references and Simpson's more distant relationships both said something about the inexhaustibility of their models, as well as the possibilities of the new medium. The other all-tape piece was Donnacha Costello's Structure for Processed Sound Material and Sine Waves (2001), which memorably applies snatches of canonic technique to the sounds and rhythms of techno music.
Strict canon was represented by Elliott Carter's taut Canon for Four, written in 1984, and by Joseph Groocock's accomplished Double Augmentation Canon from 10 years later. But it could have been 70 earlier.
Non-electronic performance was not helped by the acoustics of the Project Arts Centre's upstairs room. The dry sound emphasised that David Adams, on harpsichord for the Bach pieces, was not on his strongest form. Andriessen's Hout was arresting; but the pressures it places on ensemble were sometimes too evident. Some of the most fluent playing came from the young French pianist Jean Dube, whose account of four of Ligeti's Etudes was always musicianly, but emphasised expression at the expense of architectonic clarity.
Susan Doyle (flute) gave a good account of Reich's Vermont Counterpoint. But the most complete performance of the evening came from Richard Sweeney (guitar), whose relaxed precision and rhythmic tension in the same composer's Electric Counterpoint felt just right.
