Michael Dervan reviews the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra's at the NCH and Peter Crawley reviews Kanye WestPoint, Dublin
Glennie, RTÉ NSO/Maloney, MacMillan at the NCH, Dublin
Beethoven - Leonora No 3 Overture. James MacMillan - Veni, Veni, Emmanuel. Shostakovich - Symphony No 8.
The originally announced conductor for the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra's subscription concert on Friday was William Eddins. When bereavement forced him to withdraw, he was replaced by two conductors rather than one.
The NSO's assistant conductor, Gavin Maloney, took on Beethoven's Leonora No. 3 Overture and Shostakovich's Eighth Symphony. Scottish composer James MacMillan stepped up for his own percussion concerto, Veni, Veni, Emmanuel.
The MacMillan concerto, completed in early 1992 for Friday's soloist Evelyn Glennie, is based on an Advent plainsong. As the composer has explained: "Advent texts proclaim the promised day of liberation from fear, anguish and oppression, and this work is an attempt to mirror this in music."
As you might expect from a piece intended for the ever- dynamic Glennie, MacMillan's is a punchy, high-impact work, gaudy and sharp, missing not a trick in targeting listeners' responses. MacMillan and Glennie delivered it with unwavering eagerness.
Like his predecessor David Brophy, Gavin Maloney landed himself a real sink-or-swim programme in his first short-notice stand-in as the NSO's assistant conductor. In the Beethoven overture, he showed a willingness to attempt unorthodox solutions. Not all of his unexpected gradations of tempo sounded persuasive on this occasion, but the depth of characterisation he was after was unmissable.
Shostakovich's Eighth Symphony may lack the immediate pictorialism and historic association (the siege of Leningrad) which brought immediate fame to the Seventh, but it is generally considered the finer work.
It is long, often bleak and harsh, and not many listeners have found it easy to relate to the composer's assertion, made shortly after its completion in September 1943: "I can sum up the philosophical conception of my new work in three words: life is beautiful. Everything that is dark and gloomy will rot away, vanish, and the beautiful will triumph."
Maloney's handling of the piece was patient and observant, careful and judicious in colouring and dynamics,unfazed even by the gargantuan scale of the opening movement. But, in spite of the well-grounded manner, the symphony did not quite gell, and the whole seemed less than the sum of its well-conveyed parts.
Maloney may not have managed to keep the necessary track of the bigger picture, but his moment-by-moment control was impressive and was acknowledged at the end in the enthusiastic responses of audience and orchestra alike. Michael Dervan
Kanye West at Point, Dublin
With its disputed origins, divided disciples and sermons on damnation or redemption, hip- hop is more than music. It's a religion. No one understands this better than Kanye West, the producer turned MC, whose career has been a thrilling mix of reverence and sacrilege since he first sampled a 70s soul standard and sped it up to resemble Alvin and the Chipmunks.
Proudly literate and just as proudly materialistic, West originally rapped about being "the first nigga with a Benz and a backpack", and he has since united so many contradictions he could well be hip-hop's saviour.
Though it opens with a Pamela Anderson-assisted Evel Knievel video, the first of West's two sold- out appearances at The Point is not nearly as preposterous as you might have hoped (West's ego precedes him).
Instead, the pyrotechnics burst and shower in his set-list: a pummelling Diamonds From Sierra Leone, Heard 'Em Say, We Don't Care and The New Work- out Plan are each accompanied by a nine-piece, all-female violin section pounding their bows to the beat of DJ A-Trak.
The show becomes a little doughy around its mid-section, West's splenetic flow fizzling into an instrumental work-out for the string-honeyz and countless reminders of Kanye's work as a producer-for-hire.
The best of these, the spiritual tempest of This Way, casts West as a repentant sinner. His own brilliantly sardonic "men beware women" hit, Gold Digger (now with thorax-splitting bass drum), sees him as a pre-nuptial martyr.
Chief among the Thou Shalt Nots of live hip-hop is the commandment to never look as if you're having fun - something West annihilates in a dance-cum- aerobics work-out during A-Ha's Take On Me. It almost makes up for his theatrical railing against the critics (Boo! Hiss!) on Bring Me Down.
Infinitely better is the military march of Jesus Walks, a gospel song for the iPod generation, perfectly summing up the exhilarating conflicts in West, constantly struggling with his demons and grudges while he redefines hip-hop and pop music in the process. Peter Crawley
