Irish Times writers review a selection of events from the world of arts
Gerard Gillen (organ), National Concert Hall
Bach/Vivaldi - Concerto in A minor BWV593 Mozart - Andante in F K616 Stanford - Intermezzo (on an Irish air) Franck - Choral No 3 in A minor Saint-Säens - Fantasie in E flat Vierne - Claire de lune Op 54 No 5 Widor - Final (Symphony No 6)
One needs nerve to begin a recital with the Bach/Vivaldi Concerto in A minor BWV593. It is one of the most demanding of Bach's organ works; and the player needs to capture the dash of Vivaldi's original for two violins and strings. Gerard Gillen did that, in this lunchtime recital presented as part of the National Concert Hall's 25th anniversary celebrations. The final Allegro in particular was almost reckless, yet was controlled.
There was also an engaging, though not always tidy account of Mozart's Andante in F K616, with a single flute stop, tootling like a fairground organ, underlining the work's origin as a piece for mechanical organ. Equally engaging was Stanford's Intermezzo written on an Irish air - the Derry Air, of course.
I was not always persuaded by the tendency to convey flexibility through delaying beats, rather than through a connected flexibility of metre. But this is something of a hot topic in organ playing.
That same thought arose in some of the five French pieces that came in the programme's last half, especially in a bracing account of the Final from Widor's Symphony No 6, and in Saint-Säens's Fantaisie in E flat, which had plenty of apt swagger.
These pieces were nevertheless in line with Gerard Gillen's reputation as an especially commanding player of French music from the last 150 years.
Franck's Choral No 3 in A minor, with improvisatory flair in the outer sections, control of endless melody in the central slow section, and with an excellent command of registration, was a moving and profound reading of one of the finest organ works of the 19th century. Martin Adams
The Emperor's Feast, The King's Got Donkey's Ears, Lambert Puppet Theatre
The 13th International Puppet Festival got off to a brilliant start last weekend with the first visit of the Karromato company from the Czech Republic. The Prague-based puppeteers brought The Emperor's Feast, a comic recreation of the circumstances and first performance of Mozart's one-act opera The Theatre Director.
They had their own stage, a sumptuous amalgam of plush red curtains, footlights and inner sections to accommodate the scenes.
So the emperor writes a libretto, commissions Mozart to compose the music, and the comedy begins. We meet an array of characters; flunkeys, set-builders, Mozart trying to work with a squalling baby, opera singers and more.
There is continuous music by Wolfgang Amadeus, both instrumental and vocal, as the Mozart-meets-slapstick scenario is developed, and the whole is a pleasure to the ear as well as to the eye.
The weekend also hosted the Theatre of Widdershins from the UK with The King's Got Donkey's Ears, a traditional story set here in ancient Greece. Puppeteer-narrator Andy Lawrence mediates between the audience and his ingenious creations. King Orik becomes embroiled in a dispute between Apollo and Pan, is punished with ass-ears and eventually restored to happiness with the aid of dog Scruffibus, a barber, a doctor and a minstrel.
It made for ingenious and effective fun. Gerry Colgan
Li Lu, Mary McCague, St Ann's Church, Dawson Street, Dublin
Bach - Cello Suite No 1 in G. Beethoven - Sonata in D Op 102 No 2. Schumann - Fantasy Pieces Op 73. Debussy - Sonata in D minor. Trad Chinese - The Blind Girl. Li Lu - Believe.
Making her Dublin debut, 26-year-old Chinese cellist Li Lu unrepentantly offered a non-European take on some core works of European repertoire. She was accompanied with quiet professionalism by Irish pianist Mary McCague.
Li Lu played confidently and with a particular authority. Her dynamic expression tended frequently to surge to a maximum, as if she were revving up a car engine. These rushes of agitation were less suited to the tranquil first of Schumann's Op 73 Fantasy Pieces than to the capricious last, which bounded forward with Romantic unreserve.
Articulation too went to extremes, with nicely pointed staccatos in the Courante of Bach's Cello Suite No 1, and some taut portamento in a Chinese melody, The Blind Girl.
But intermediate textures tended to be bland: the passage work of Bach's Allemande wanted more spring to its step, while in the slow movement of Beethoven's D Major Sonata, notes taken in one bow remained strangely unconnected.
Yet all this strongly suggested that Li Lu is having to make do with an intractable instrument, and needs to be playing one that's more resonant and more responsive.
With Debussy's Sonata came the sense that she is more comfortable with the freely measured utterances of French Impressionism than with the four-square phraseology and polyphonic argument of the German classics. Andrew Johnstone
RTÉ NSO/Markson, National Concert Hall
Weber - Freischüutz Overture. Mozart - Haffner Symphony. Mahler - Symphony No 1.
The RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra opened its new subscription series at the National Concert Hall on Friday, the day that RTÉ announced a two-year extension of Gerhard Markson's contract as principal conductor. The concert also marked the start of another of Markson's bold thematic programming decisions, the performance of all of Mahler's symphonies in a single season.
It turned out to be very much an evening of two halves. Mozart's Haffner Symphony (substituting for Paganini's Second Violin Concerto due to the indisposition of the soloist Sergej Krylov) was delivered in a manner so brisk and brusque that the music sounded not so much energised as shallow. And the magical atmosphere of Weber'sFreischüutz Overture never quite materialised, in spite of the sharpness of some of the playing.
All was transformed for Mahler's First Symphony after the interval, with Markson and his players responding fully to the spaciousness and sheer originality of the sounds Mahler conceived in a work that consistently baffled audiences and critics for many years after its 1889 premiere.
Markson's approach was measured, consistently tempered in its handling of melodic sweetness, vigorous in the rhythmic thrust of the second movement's Ländler, patient in its unfolding of the funereal march of the third. And then he turned into a new mode for a fierce communication of the turbulence and despair of the finale. With polished and disciplined playing, this was as satisfying a performance of this symphony as I've heard from this orchestra. Michael Dervan
