The third of John Gibson's string quartets, IKON, 10 Meditations for String Quartet, commissioned for the festival, was premiered by the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet.
The icon of the title, the composer explains, "is a 12th century Byzantine image, in a cruciform halo, of the head of Christ". The image, he says, "is known as 'not made by human hands'. In other words, the image was received, not fabricated; divine, not human."
In the same way, he explains: "I received the opening motif, complete in its setting. The following 10 meditations evolved in a series of elaborations which again were received, after a gestation period of some months."
For the composer, the emblematic significance of the much harped-on and frequently vertically-expanded motif may be sufficient in itself. For the listener, the bareness of the material and the thinness of the musical argument remain problematic until the piece is almost over.
Tchaikovsky's Piano Trio in A minor raises similar issues of obsessive repetition, and Tchaikovsky compounded his problems by raising the stakes through rodomontade. The Rosamunde Trio's performance was not always agreeably tidy, but the players gave themselves to the task with gusto.
Earlier in the day Nicholas Daniel (oboe) and Julius Drake (piano) had presented Lutoslawski's compact, unerringly-paced Epitaph and Britten's altogether more extravagant Temporal variations with consistently engaging persuasiveness. And French clarinettist Paul Meyer joined the Czech Prazák quartet in a chalk-and-cheese reading of the Mozart Clarinet Quintet, the quartet warmly romantic, Meyer coolly measured, but in a fascinatingly multi-faceted way. It may sound like a musical mismatch but it wasn't.
The T'ang Quartet again brought their fresh, modernist perspective to a little-known work from the 1920s, this time the Second Quartet by Bohuslav Martinu.
The best, however, was left till last, two Shostakovich song-cycles in a late-night concert. The 1960 Satires reminded one of the acid Shostakovich of the 1920s and 1930s, the Six Poems by Marina Tsvetaeva of 1973 setting texts of the kind of overt protest that Shostakovich as a man usually shunned. The performance by Lyudmila Shkirtil was riveting. - Michael Dervan
Maritana - RDS Concert Hall
Including opera in its multifarious activities for the first time, the RDS marked its 275th anniversary with a concert performance of Maritana, the chef d'uvre of 19th century Irish composer Vincent Wallace.
To give you a glimpse of Wallace's scenario, impoverished nobleman Don Caesar gets himself arrested for duelling, acts as the stooge in a set-up wedding to a disguised woman, and then escapes an execution for which he had been pardoned anyway.
Our Lady's Choral Society took the chorus parts with much enjoyment. Their voice production was served by a rhythmic alertness that made for some brilliant effects.
Conductor Proinnsías Ó Duinn secured well-blended sounds from the RDS Opera Orchestra, but allowed it to swamp much of the solo singing. Mezzo-soprano Lynda Lee represented the youth Lazarillo with solemnity, while as Don Caesar agile tenor Robin Tritschler was at his best when developing the hero's lyrical side.
Holding his own against the heavy instrumentation was bass John Molloy as the King of Spain. Baritone Owen Gilhooly as Don José combined spontaneous expression with a luxuriously mature tone. And as the titular heroine, rising star soprano Mairead Buicke sparkled. - Andrew Johnstone
