Irish Times writers review Sean Lennon in The Village, Calexico at the Olympia Theatre and a selection of classical recitals in Dublin.
NCC/Antunes, National Gallery, Dublin
Lassus - Missa Osculetur me Schoenberg - De Profundis
Schütz - Herzlich lieb hab' ich dich, o Herr SWV387
Brahms - Fest-und Gedenksprüche Op 109
The theme of the National Chamber Choir's winter concert series is Soli Deo Gloria, and the concentration on the glory of God gives a very wide field indeed for programming choices. Thursday's opening concert under Celso Antunes kept to household names as regards composers, but offered some unusual choices of actual works.
Antunes's spoken introduction to Schoenberg's De Profundis, one of a set of Modern Psalms the composer did not live to complete, suggested that the piece's integration of spoken text with singing indicated a recognition by Schoenberg of a specific limitation of his 12-tone technique.
The composer's early use of narration in Gurrelieder and invention of that strange blend of speech and melody, Sprechgesang, in Pierrot Lunaire some four decades before the psalm setting surely tell otherwise. Never mind. Antunes showed himself to be sharply attuned to the expressive potential of the use of both speech and singing in this technically demanding, Hebrew setting of Psalm 130.
The Schoenberg followed a performance of Lassus's Missa osculetur me which found the choir singing with an unusually gentle liquidity of manner, soft in vocal finish, and only occasionally rising to moments of pressure.
The second half of the programme offered another pairing of early and late, the mildness of Schütz's Herzlich lieb hab' ich dich, o Herr, SWV387, set in stark contrast with the amplitude of Brahms's nationalistic scripture settings, the Fest- und Gedenksprüche, which were dedicated to "His Magnificence the Lord Mayor of Hamburg, Dr Carl Petersen" as a thank you from the composer for the freedom of Hamburg being conferred on him in 1889.
There were some signs of strain and coarseness as the singers sought for a sheer volume of tone that would have required more voices to achieve.
But the commitment and radiance of their performance was unmissable. - Michael Dervan
Mitchell/Szymanski, Coach House, Dublin Castle
Soprano Laura Mitchell and guitarist Morgan Szymanski are on a seven-venue Music Network tour. Their programme of music from Spain and South America consists of original compositions inspired by folk music, of folk-song arrangements, and of guitar solos, all composed within the last 120 years.
Such an intimate programme is highly dependent on the performers having a sure aim towards the music and the audience. They have it.
Laura Mitchell's clarity and ease of tone are ideal for music such as Rodrigo's Three Spanish Songs, and the simple-yet-arty folk-song style of Ponce's Three Mexican Songs. Her minute subtleties of expression, inflexions of words, and bending of pitch and rhythm are the mark of a singer who knows that music of this kind cannot be overstated, and who can draw on a wealth of musicianship and technique to say the tiniest thing without fuss.
Morgan Szymanski's guitar playing is among the best I have heard in a long time. In two tangos by Piazzolla and in Tarrega's demanding guitar arrangements of Sevilla and Cadiz from Albeniz's Suite España for piano, this Mexican-born musician's flexible rhythmic energy and command of colour indicated a superb sense of style. The Jota from de Falla's Seven Spanish Folk Songs is well known in its version for full orchestra. But in this highly coloured performance from just two musicians, one forgot all about that.
Mitchell and Szymanski seemed to know one another's music as intimately as their own. They did not need to impress the audience, just to draw them in. And they did it in style, ending not with a bang, but with a rarified evocation - Villa-Lobos' own arrangement of his Bachianas Brazilieras No 5, with the eight cellos impeccably reduced down to one guitar. - Martin Adams
• Tours to Bray (tonight), Clifden (Monday), Castlebar (Tuesday) and New Ross (Thursday). Contact: 01-671 9429 or visit www.musicnetwork.ie
Anvik, Oslo String Quartet, St Stephen's Church, Dublin
That there was some reluctance to begin this concert was understandable: the inane shrieking of a nearby burglar alarm was unpleasantly audible, and there was no telling when it would cease.
But time was pressing.
"What do you think?" asked Are Sandbakken, the Oslo String Quartet's viola player. Taking the general sense of indecision as a "yes", Geir Inge Lotsberg, the first violinist, launched Beethoven's Quartet in C-sharp minor Op 131.
Perhaps he knew that nothing would be able to detract from the astonishing feat of concentrated music-making that ensued, that all extraneous thoughts and sensations would be blotted out by it.
Certainly, the alarm's dying moment passed by unnoticed.
That's what can happen when four musicians sound as if they have been eating the same food, reading the same books, and breathing the same air - as if their instruments have been cut from the same tree, and their bows haired from the same horse and rubbed, even, with the same rosin.
Four musicians, too, whose unanimity of toning, tuning and timing placed no constraints on their interpretation. On the contrary, there was daring expressive freedom, an absolute willingness to let the music have its exalted way.
To follow the quartet that Beethoven considered to be his finest with another one - by any composer - might have invited uneasy comparisons. But Schumann's Quintet in E flat, with Vebjorn Anvik dexterously adding a new dimension at the piano, posed no such danger.
With exquisitely turned cantabiles from cellist Øystein Sonstad, conspicuous exactitude of intonation in the double-stopping of second violinist Per Kristian Skalstad, and deep-throated dignity in the halting march of Sandbakken's viola, this was a feast of contrapuntal fascination and melodic charm. - Andrew Johnstone
This evening, Castlepollard 8pm.
Sean Lennon. The Village, Dublin
Sean Lennon faces a perennial problem: a good proportion of the crowd at this concert are patently there to see the ghost of his father. Seated, café-style, at candle-lit tables (all the better to disguise a relatively small turn-out), the audience starts snapping pictures with their Nokias and Canons as soon as he takes the stage. Whatever the strengths of his own music, Lennon jnr is forever doomed to be a John Lennon nostalgia act.
Not that Sean helps matters - with funky brown velvet suit, big hat, scruffy beard and round spectacles, he is a doppelgänger for his father. His voice has that distinctive nasal intonation and, despite having grown up in New York, his accent is decidedly English. It is an uncanny, eerie resemblance.
Lennon, though, gives a winning, likeable performance. When struggling to tune his guitar between tracks, he entertains the crowd with funny and quirky observations, making use of the intimate atmosphere. "Does not having the accent in my name make me really uncool here?" he asks at one point. His band, too, are more than happy to join in the conversation.
But what about his music? In 1998, Lennon released Into the Sun, a gorgeous, low-fi collection of sweet songs that was certainly better than many of his father's solo albums. If he were his own man, that record might have been the start of a promising career as a respected singer-songwriter, but the inevitable comparisons overshadowed the album, and it was heard by hardly anyone.
It has taken eight years to record his follow up, Friendly Fire, and the new songs make up the bulk of his performance. None have quite the same blissful vibe of his earlier material, but tracks such as Falling Out of Love and Parachute sparkle.
The scrum of autograph hunters that swarm around him after the performance, however, indicate that the music is beside the point - most people are there to be reminded of a legend. It's hard not to feel that Sean Lennon deserves more than that. - Davin O'Dwyer
Calexico, Olympia Theatre, Dublin
Howling and whooping like a gang of cowboys on the run, Calexico returned to Dublin in true form Thursday night. Wearing a checked shirt and swinging his arm as if he were cracking a whip, lead singer Joey Burns played country rhythms on acoustic guitar while the band blasted Mariachi-style trumpets and haunting slide guitar, creating that dusty, borderland sound that defines Calexico.
Thursday was All Souls Day - the Day of the Dead, as Burns reminded us - and no better occasion to listen to Calexico's noir-infused, folksy-Latino sound. As images of grinning, eerie skeletons flickered above, Burns' voice sounded the appropriate haunting note.
Playing mostly from their latest album, Garden Ruin, Calexico's six-piece outfit was fascinating to watch. Jacob Valenzuela kept rhythm with a shaker in one hand, a trumpet in the other, then switched to backing vocals - all in the one song. Piano accordions, mandolins, keyboards and numerous acoustic and electric guitars moved rapidly around the band. At times, the trademark acoustic subtly of Calexico lost out to power chords and rock crescendos, but ultimately the energy of their country-Mexican blend won out.
Female vocals came from Katell Keineg who joined the band for two songs. Wearing boots, a brown dress and with her long blond hair parted at the middle, Keineg looked the part, especially with Bob Dylan's One More Cup of Coffee for the Road. Valenzuela stuck with the Latino tone on Treacherous Ice, while the reflective, moody, Panic Open String, was one of the evening's high points.
The band finished on another high with Guero Canelo, still one of their finest tracks. - Sorcha Hamilton
