Irish Times writers review a selection of events in the arts world.
AXA Dublin International Piano Competition Finals NCH, Dublin
Not many people seem to have had a clear idea of the ranking of the six finalists in the AXA Dublin International Piano Competition as they faced into their concerto performances with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra under Gerhard Markson last Thursday and Friday.
Italian pianist Roberto Plano's semi-finals performance of Schubert made a very positive impression and people were talking about him, but there was no widely accepted front-runner. The jury, of course, may have known that there was a definite leader. But, in the absence of public favourites, most listeners seemed to be treating the outcome of the final as wide open.
Libor Novacek's handling of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto soon changed that. Novacek, a thoughtful, reflective musician. who had performed admirably in the earlier rounds, took an approach to the Emperor that was so laid-back and mild-mannered, so strangely and wilfully understated, that he immediately put himself out of contention for the top place.
Kyu Yeon Kim's performance of Brahms's daunting D minor Concerto came as an immediate relief. Her playing was strong, purposeful, powerfully projected and technically commanding. For me there was an extraordinary amount of interpretative detailing to take issue with. But, in a way that was not true of Novacek's Beethoven, you could listen to Kim's Brahms.
Rina Sudo was the only finalist to play Tchaikovsky's First Concerto, the greatest audience pleaser among the concertos on offer. There was not much in the way of subtlety in her performance, but she set upon the piece with eager and fearless enthusiasm, and the derring-do of the thundering octave passages, not to mention the unquenchable spirit of the performance as a whole, won a warm response from the audience.
Friday's line-up repeated the first two concertos. Gilles Vonsattel took a direct and forthright approach to the Emperor Concerto, quite the opposite of Novacek in the firmness of his presentation. The limitation of his delivery was that it had more the rhetoric of a prepared speech than any kind of personal statement.
Roberto Plano brought all the intimacy anyone could have wished for to the Brahms, but failed to convey the music's sense of turbulence and struggle. If Brahms had actually wanted the kind of effect Plano delivered, he would surely have had the common sense to have written a different piece. As with the two Beethoven performances, this was almost the polar opposite of the previous night's performance.
Romain Descharmes played Ravel's Concerto in G, a work that is short and sharp, and with a gentle core modelled on the Larghetto of Mozart's Clarinet Quintet. Some coldness of tone in the slow movement notwithstanding, his was the least contentious of the performances, and he captured the upbeat freshness of the outer movements in fine style.
It was Descharmes (26), from France, who was awarded the top prize of €12,000 and a long list of concert engagements. Kyu Yeon Kim (20), from Korea, came second and also won two other prizes, the special Bridget Doolan Prize for Mozart, and the NSO Prize for the best concerto performance other than the first prizewinner's. Robert Plano (27), from Italy, took the third prize, the RTÉ Lyric FM Prize for the best performance of a commissioned work (he played John Gibson's Moladh go deo le Dia), and the AXA Prize for the best semi-final recital other than the first prizewinner's.
Fourth, fifth and sixth places went to Libor Novacek (26), from the Czech Republic, Rina Sudo (18), from Japan, and Gilles Vonsattel (24), from Switzerland. The Charles J Brennan Prize for the highest placed Irish competitor went to Michael McHale (23), who also won the Field Prize for best performance of a nocturne or sonata by John Field. Michael Dervan
Devin, de Moel, O'Reilly, Elwes, Culwick Choral Society and Orchestra NCH, Dublin
Mendelssohn - Elijah.
On a night when 30-odd Muslim asylum-seekers were taking refuge in St Patrick's Cathedral, a choir only a mile away at the National Concert Hall was singing a joyous, triumphal chorus celebrating the Israelites' impromptu slaughter at the riverside of the priests of a rival faith.
The Culwick Choral Society, giving their first ever performance of Mendelssohn's once hugely popular Elijah, might well have found more universal sympathy for the oratorio's self-righteous and violent religious intolerance at an earlier point in their 108-year history. In Ireland in 2006 you'd hope that such sentiments were alien to the choir's membership and audience.
Such were the thoughts stirred up by the best moments in Saturday's performance, among them the slaughter chorus. Conductor Colin Block had the Culwick's 100-strong voices well-prepared and sounding confident. They were accurate and secure almost throughout, even in Mendelssohn's most complex, Bach-inspired contrapuntal movements.
There were many dips in intensity, however, possibly due to a lack of zip to the words, which in turn, perhaps, may have had something to do with a lack of conviction - even pretended conviction - in the subject matter. Or it may simply have been about numbers and the relative strength of voices, as illustrated by the commendable presence of just eight tenors versus twice as many often overly gentle basses and three- dozen altos.
Bass Philip O'Reilly was in his element as the eponymous Old Testament prophet, defying the king and queen, hectoring the people, and taunting the priests of Baal to "call him louder" when their god provides no sign of his existence. Both theatrically and vocally - notably in challenging movements such as the wide-ranged "Is not His word like a fire!" - O'Reilly was an ideal Elijah. He was very well supported by tenor John Elwes. The concert also offered a chance to hear the fresh-voiced soprano Anna Devin and the nicely edgy timbre of Dutch mezzo Maria de Moel.
The small part of The Youth was sung with bell-like clarity by treble Emmet Kiberd. Michael Dungan
