In the first of a series of recitals organised by the Association of Irish Composers there were works by Deirdre McKay (Time, Shining), Derek Ball (Variations on a Mood and Four People) as well as Gerald Barry's Triorchic Blues.
The raw energy of this last piece was unequalled by anything else in the recital, though there were substantial works by Copland, his Piano Variations, and by Schnittke, his Improvisation and Fugue, as well as shorter pieces by Oliver Knussen and Takemitsu.
Owen Lorigan played with great punch, plainly relishing the possible stridencies of the note clusters in the scores but a little more rhythmic elan would not have been amiss, particularly in the longer works.
McKay's Time, Shining had a note repeated throughout, like the tick of a clock with a constantly altering pendulum. The ambiguity of this flexible time, now warring with the surrounding notes, now co-operating, was sympathetically presented by the pianist.
The work in general, though, leaning towards the avant-garde, retained enough suggestions of the traditional to attract the less adventurous listener.
Behind Takemitsu and Knussen, one could imagine a concealed Debussy, behind Schnittke, a J.S. Bach. What was difficult to imagine was how the folksy Copland of Rodeo could have emerged from the fascinatingly abrasive piano variations of 1930!
