Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin
Michael Dungan Trimble – Phantasy Trio. Boydell – Sonata for Cello and Piano Op 24. Fauré – Trio Op 20.
Fauré’s Op. 20 Trio is not often performed here; the two works by Irish composers practically never. So before even sounding a single note, these three players – violinist Anne Harte, cellist Niall O’Loughlin, and pianist Pádhraic Ó Cuinneagáin – had already provided the Hugh Lane faithful with an opportunity of some value.
But in the event the concert offered more than just a chance to hear rare repertoire. There was good chamber music-making and a lively engagement with the programme, which in turn engaged the listener.
Enniskillen-born Joan Trimble (1915-2000) studied with Vaughan Williams and Herbert Howells at the Royal College of Music, London, where her Phantasy Trio won a composition prize in 1940. In a printed programme note she is quoted asserting her creative independence – “I . . . have always written music subject to neither schools nor period”. This, of course, made the various influences upon her leap out immediately: Debussy, the pastoral style of her two teachers, and, very discreetly, Irish folksong. But these influences were masterfully assimilated. And it’s no wonder this little gem was a prizewinner given how she structures its 12 minutes or so from a slow, rhapsodic opening to a jig-like middle section to a great unison climax before winding down to a beautiful, reposeful close. Nearly her exact contemporary, Brian Boydell (1917-2000) had followed Frederick May out of what Boydell himself referred to mischievously as the “Celtic Twilight” style. Although his 1945 Sonata for Cello and Piano doesn’t really qualify as one of his “bad boy” pieces, it certainly illustrates his interest in music on the continent, for example with the voice of Stravinsky in the piano’s wintry, bell-like ostinato in the slow movement.
The players didn’t always sustain the magic of the opening of the Fauré, nor did they always cope with the work’s almost continuous intensity. Yet they played with the same honesty of intent as with the Irish pieces, and brought the piece – and the concert – to a jolly conclusion.
