Elaine Agnew's Calligraphy (first performance) clings to the lower registers, with much use of the alto flute, bass clarinet and cello. The violin and vibraphone throw gleams into the dark as the melodic line travels through the shades of the valley, seriously but with an occasional skip and jump, before emerging on a high plateau for a brief and bright rhythmic interlude. The angularity of much modern music is absent and the melodic cells develop and repeat most satisfyingly.
Concorde /Jane O'Leary
Hugh Lane Gallery
Douglas Sealy
Calligraphy (2002)..................Elaine Agnew
Verde y Negro (1988).............Consuelo Diez
Mushrooming (1999/2000).....Elaine Agnew
Spiegel Bilder (1996).............Isabel Mundry
Waves and Caves (2002).......Ciaran Farrell
In Mushrooming (soprano and piano trio) by the same composer, the richly layered textures give a sonic impression of the fecundity of the autumn woods where the carpet of rotten leaves produces "a paradise of phalloi mushrooming in damp". A text of Chris Agee's words was provided, otherwise the high soprano part would have left the subject incomprehensible.
Consuelo Diez's Verde y Negro is also text-driven, but the words are not revealed as the work is for flute/piccolo and piano. This is an uncomfortable piece with brutal chords on the piano and strident whistling on the piccolo giving vent to emotions of anger and despair.
Spiegel Bilder (Mirror Images) is for clarinet and accordion. The composer Isabel Mundry asks for the performers to sit apart and to play with a certain freedom. It was a bit like hearing two people talking, an old man's slow reminiscences in one ear and a youth's sprightly chatter in the other, the talk only occasionally converging.
Sunday's concert in the Hugh Lane Gallery ended with Ciaran Farrell's Waves and Caves (first performance). For quintet, like Calligraphy, it wedded edgy harmonies to tunes that had their inspiration in folk and jazz and was refreshingly free of angst.
Nickel Creek
Whelans
Edward Power
folk music is enjoying an unlikely commercial renaissance, its popularity buoyed by the phenomenal success of the Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? movie soundtrack. Evocatively recreating the spirit of Depression-era Mississippi, the record sold four million copies, bagged a Grammy award, and created an instant fan base for quirky revivalists such as San Diego's Nickel Creek.
Brother and sister Sean and Sara Watkins and childhood friend Charles Thile have been playing together since their early teens. Last year's breakthrough album, Nickel Creek, was a lissom fusion of genres, irreverently juxtaposing Celtic, bluegrass, folk and classical influences. Unkind reviewers likened Nickel Creek's sugary translations to the soulless faux-country patented by Garth Brooks. Casual listeners, who couldn't care a fig for elitist notions of "authenticity", lapped it up. In concert, the trio underscored their mainstream credentials and disdain for dry earnestness. Drawing on sepia-toned folk standards and vivacious original compositions, the trio offered a beguiling marriage of the traditional and the contemporary. Irish reels shared the stage with exquisite blue grass workouts. Lilting pop numbers jostled for attention alongside raucous singsongs and ghostly ballads.
At the heart of the melee, Sean Watkins's frantic mandolin etched delirious melodies. His deft, muscular delivery provided an electrifying backdrop for sister Sara, still in her teens and possessing an astonishing vocal range capable of flitting freely between taut falsetto and barbed drawl. Crouched beside her, Thile proved an eager lieutenant, contributing an aromatic garnish of banjo and fiddle.
Purists may loathe their unabashed populism, but those of a less esoteric bent will find Nickel Creek a thrilling proposition.
Jerry Creedon & Friends
NCH John Field Room
Douglas Sealy
Suite Buenos Aires; Cinco Preludios; Tangata de Agosto.................Maximo Diego Pujol
Diego Pujol (born 1957) is an Argentinian who began composing before he had any lessons in composition. The Cinco Preludios for solo guitar, three of which were played by Jerry Creedon in last Friday's recital in the NCH John Field Room, date from that early period, and were written during the years 1977 and 1979. Despite the presence of dance rhythms - the tango, and the candombe which has its origins in voodoo ritual - these Preludes have all the melancholy of a campfire under the moon on a high plateau. Creedon gave a sympathetic and delicate performance.
Creedon's friends - Candace Whitehead (violin), Leslie-Gail Ellis (violin), John Vallery (viola) and Gerry Kelly (cello) - formed a string quartet and joined the guitar in the other two works on the programme.
Suite Buenos Aires (1993) may have benefited structurally from the composition lessons, but lost out in atmosphere. And the guitar had trouble making itself heard against the other four instruments.
The texture of Tangata de Agosto was more varied as the guitar had frequent duets with the individual bowed instruments.
As in Paganini's Sonatas for violin and guitar, the combination was most agreeable, but when all five instruments were playing there was a sense of conflicting styles - the Argentinian guitar versus the European quartet - such as one would not find in Boccherini's Guitar Quintets.
The Bitter End
The Sugar Club
Peter Crawley
Bitter End is a monthly musical taster-menu offering small portions but plenty of courses. Each act on the bill gets 30 minutes within the big velvet box of the Sugar Club, while house rules demand at least two cover versions from each performer.
First to strum last Sunday night was J-Healy, chasing down a litany of three-chord pop songs such as Someday and Planet Hi-Fi. Kila's Colm Ó Snodaigh performed a trilingual set of Gallic, Irish and English. Before a lovelorn Uaireanta brought them together, shambolic support made it all sound like a lullaby melting in the sun. Although merely bilingual, Jeanette Byrne delivered a cleansing sorbet through a set incandescent with torch songs. A breathy Autumn Leaves and a moving La Chanson Des Vieux Amants set the tone, while superb accompanist Jan O'Brien scored the melodrama with plangent picked guitar. A smouldering version of Toni Braxton's Unbreak My Heart showed how the torch has been passed, and even a predictable Je Ne Regrette Rien was elevated by Byrne's undoubted sincerity.
With particular allegiances and proper jobs to get to in the morning, the audience had diminished to a small but eager gathering by the time Pugwash arrived. Sounding like the Beatles without sitars, LSD or Ringo, Thomas Walsh's divinely melodic trio played a witty set, ripe with harmonies and dripping with chart appeal.
Beautifully constructed tunes such as Keep Moving On, Emily Regardless and Omega Man proved the band far more sensitive than their name suggests.
Not everything on the menu may have been to everyone's taste, but ultimately it amounted to some fine dining.
