JANE O'Leary's new string quartet, Mystic Play of Shadows, premiered by the RTE Vanbrugh String Quartet at Bantry House on Monday night, is largely inspired by "the sights and sounds of nature". In particular, the composer was influenced by birdsong, though, unlike Messiaen, she has chosen to focus less on identifiable individuals than on the collective chorus.
The single movement piece, which takes its title from Walt Whitman, can be heard as a sort of rural rhapsody, moving, in a direction new to this composer, towards touches of nostalgic pastoralism.
The Vanbrughs also played the Seventh Quartet of Robert Simpson, written for the centenary of Sir James Jeans in Simpson's carefully structured musical argument worn well, the tell tale imprint of familiar influences (rocking figurations for instance) integrating more smoothly into the fabric the music than is often the case.
The Vanbrugh's performance of both works sounded convinced and convincing.
The third quartet of the day was John Tavener's muted, meditative "journey from Paradise towards Paradise", The Hidden Treasure. It was given a well sustained late night performance by the Parisii Quartet, whose cellist, JeanPhilippe Martignoni, seemed particularly well attuned to Tavener's musical idiom.
The day opened with pianist Philippe Cassard in a sequence of waltzes by Durand, Debussy, Faure, Ravel, Scriabin, Tchaikovsky, Levitzky, and Moszkowski, a daring sort of proposition for a non octogenarian performer. For my taste, the playing was a bit too formal, with not enough of the relaxation or perfume of the soirees such a programme was surely intended to evoke.
Cassard also featured with soprano Veronique Dietschy in the version of Faure's Bonne chanson with strings (on this occasion, the members of the Parisii Quartet).
It's fascinating to hear how the larger and more colourful instrumentation highlights linearity more than the piano original (it's all down to the keyboard instrument's sustaining pedal, I suspect). Dietschy sang with that acuteness of perception which leaves one feeling one has encountered musical transmission of the utmost purity no extras, no redundancy, nothing added, nothing taken away.
