Restaurants don't often challenge the custom that soup comes before dessert, nor orchestral programmers the well-established practice that concertos precede symphonies. Orchestral habits are so fully ingrained that the concerto/ symphony order is often allowed to override the dominant programming practice of our day, the chronological imperative.
West Cork Chamber Music Festival
Michael Dervan
The main evening concert at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival on Sunday was an unusual adventure that ran in reverse chronological order.
Catherine Leonard (violin), James Boyd (viola) and Natalie Clein (cello) opened the concert with Retrospectum by Bertold Goldschmidt (1903-96), a German whose music fared so badly after his enforced move to Britain in the 1930s that he actually gave up composing for more than two decades.
Simon Rattle was among the musicians to take up Goldschmidt's cause with enthusiasm and Retrospectum of 1991 is one of the products of the composer's Indian summer. It is dedicated to his parents and intended to chart the changing fortunes of their lives in the early decades of the 20th century.
The style is retrospective, too, the manner emphatic and often urgently animated, and its features were sharply caught in the incisive yet finely-wrought playing of Leonard, Boyd and Clein.
Paul Hindemith is best remembered today for the sober skills of his maturity. In his late 20s and early 30s he was an enfant terrible, cocking his nose at the establishment in a sometimes genuinely shocking manner.
The Kleine Kammermusik for wind quintet of 1923 may not be at the more irreverent end of his output. But it's a work of unputdownable high spirits, and that's exactly how the players of the Paris-Bastille Wind Ensemble delivered it, with point, panache and deliciously judged tone-colour.
The oddity of the programme order will become clear if you ask yourself how often you've heard a string quartet by Mozart as the full second half of an evening concert. Of course, the issues militating against such a choice concern not only the music, but also the approach that modern performers take to it.
The Artis Quartet played the famous Hunt Quartet, K458, with an exactitude of rhythm and a precision of ensemble that's all too rare.
They also showed an even rarer understanding of how to retain expressive latitude within the domain of dynamics, eschewing recourse to the bulging effect of rubato or agogic manipulation. In other words, their playing, while lighter than usual, had a latent power that fully vindicated the unusual choice of programme order.
The day's offerings also included two vocal recitals, Schumann, Berg and Schubert from soprano Charlotte Riedijk and Mahler from mezzo soprano Cornelia Kallisch.
Both programmes were compromised by poorly-regulated, lumpy and sometimes downright inaccurate piano accompaniments, which was a pity, as the two singers had a lot to offer in their chosen repertoire.
British cellist Colin Carr's solo recital concentrated on Bach and Britten. The tone and colouring of Bach's Sixth Suite were most attractive, but the stop-go rubato was less than persuasive.
The last of Britten's three suites, written as a tribute to Rostropovich in 1971, experienced no such problems, and received a performance of strength and sensitivity.
Also (Maud Cotter)
West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen, Co Cork
Mark Ewart
the heart of Maud Cotter's success as a visual artist lies her ability to discern the finer points of working processes, where the selection and manipulation of appropriate materials is critical. As a consequence, the realisation of the final sculptural form stems from a unified vision, where idea and material merge brilliantly into one.
In recent years the materials have become ever more surprising, with her use of cardboard in particular defying the expectations of conventional sculpture. The current exhibition is no exception, where card - strengthened by either plaster or resin - undergoes such an incredible transformation that its impermanence is replaced by the suggested longevity of marble or steel. This deception of the senses is in no way a gimmick and is used instead to investigate the properties of form and our perception of scale, weight and volume.
The Evidence of Things is the most imposing of the works assembled here, with three eight-foot sentinels, all the more beguiling due to their semi-transparent state.
Like the other pieces, this sculpture is borne from the properties of the material itself and how their character can influence shape and structure. In this sense Cotter's work might appear entirely self-referential and caught up merely with surface, effect and appearance.
But this impression would be misleading, as her art always brings one back to a shared connection with universal elements, be they water, ice, air or rock.
This universality feeds into, and emanates from, the sculptures themselves. For example, the wall-mounted title piece Also - a structure evocative of undulating waves of air or water - is conceived as a continuum, looping gracefully into
infinity.
Runs until July 13th
Dublin International Organ & Choral Festival
Douglas Sealy
last four days of the festival offered no less than 13 events for the discerning music lover. Unfortunately, I was not able to be present at them all; nevertheless by the end the music was running out of my ears.
A fascinating insight was gained into early performance practice when Malcolm Proud played music from the late 1500s on the two reconstructed Tudor organs lent by the Early English Organ Project. From these apparently primitive hand-blown instruments of limited range, Proud produced dazzling effects and brought a new freshness to composers such as Byrd and Sweelinck.
The historical theme was enlarged upon in a joint recital by Andrea Marcon (organ) and the Irish group Phantasticus (baroque violin, recorder, viola da gamba and chamber organ/harpsichord).
The music, from the early 1600s, displayed all the invention and fantasy of that exciting era when the Renaissance became ever more elaborate and turned into the Baroque.
At the same time, Caravaggio was experimenting with light and shade, Rubens was investing the burghers of the North with unsuspected charms, and Michelangelo Rossi, to name but one composer, was leading his Muse in a bewildering dance.
This explosion of musical invention, which seemed to break all the rules, had great influence on such German composers as Buxtehude and Froberger, but a certain native gravity prevented them from being too outrageous and with Bach things began to settle down.
David Leigh's recital on the organ of St Patrick's Cathedral celebrated the anniversaries of Stanford and Duruflé. He successfully tamed that mighty beast of an organ and gave lucid interpretations of the rather conventional Stanford and the more imaginative Frenchman.
The 21st anniversary of the Irish Youth Choir coinciding with the festival, one might have expected a work involving the organ of the National Concert Hall, but the choir chose to commission two new works - Overture to a Masque by Séamas de Barra, and Jubilate Deo by Ciaran Tackney, orchestrated by Patrick Zuk.
They also took down and dusted two period pieces by Aloys Fleischmann - Clare's Dragons (1945) and Song of the Provinces (1963).
These four notably colourful works gave the choir plenty of opportunities to show its enthusiasm and demonstrate its full-blooded tone. It was ably seconded by the NSO, conducted by Geoffrey Spratt.
The specially formed Festival Chorus, directed by Peter Barley, moved back in time to the late 1500s, with polychoral works by Giovanni Gabrieli, Striggio, Schutz and Tallis; it also performed Ligeti's Lux aeterna written some 400 years later.
This concert was particularly memorable, not only for the beauty of the music, but also for the venue, the rotunda of the City Hall, which gave the sound an extraordinary enhancement. One was not putting one's ear to a shell to hear the sea, one was in the shell. Tallis's 40-part motet was incredibly rich.
The finals of theorgan competition produced three prize winners: Balint Karosi (first prize), Deirdre Benians and Henry Fairs (shared third prize). There was no second prize awarded. I particularly enjoyed Karosi's Prelude and Fugue on BACH by Liszt, Benian's Choral Fantasia by Reger, and Fairs's Alleluias sereins by Messiaen, but indeed all five finalists gave much to delight in.
The Rodolfus Choir, directed by Ralph Allwood, with Philip Rushforth at the organ, brought the festival to a brilliant conclusion. David's Lament for Absalom, in four different versions, formed the heart of the programme, that by Gombert crowning the series.
Equally moving were Bach and Poulenc, a wonderful Beati quorum by Stanford. The youthful choir sang exquisitely but did not lack power when required.
