Reviewed today are Jim Doherty and Honor Heffernan, the Tallaght Choral Society and Orchestra/Armstrong, Finghin Collins at the Helix in Dublin and Susan Doyle's performance at the Bank of Ireland.
Jim Doherty & Honor Heffernan: John Field Room, Dublin.
If you like your musical nostalgia delivered with lovingly crafted taste, a touch of class, more than a modicum of wit and an insider's knowledge of the milieu that created it, then Thursday's concert was just what the doctor ordered. And, to judge by the standing ovation from a capacity audience, they felt the same way.
Working with the singer Honor Heffernan, the bassist Dave Fleming and the drummer Myles Drennan, the pianist Jim Doherty has created a series of shows from what is called the Great American Song Book, the Old Testament of a classic era of song, written mostly for Broadway but also for Hollywood; chapter and verse come from names such as Porter, Gershwin and Warren.
Supplying the epistles this time round were Sammy Cahn, Harold Arlen and Duke Ellington. Cahn, who liked to put his own words to existing songs for private amusement (samples: "The girl that I marry will have to be / A nympho who owns a distillery" and "This is my first affair / So what goes where"), is clearly a man whose wit appeals to Doherty. But he was also responsible for some of the finest songs of his time.
Although the quartet took it slightly too fast for my taste, Heffernan delivered the lyrics beautifully in what was, with I Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out To Dry, one of the highlights of a first set that took time to come to life. Partly this might have been choice of material; Bei Mir Bist Du Schön, I've Heard That Song Before and a trio version of Be My Love, for example, are hardly prime Cahn.
A second set, featuring Arlen and Ellington, came to life right from the start. More opportunity for the singer to tackle one of her fortes - ballads - produced, among other things, beautifully sung versions of Arlen's Stormy Weather and the tricky Ill Wind. By the time they came to Ellington the quartet were on a roll and Heffernan was in her vocal element, with lovely interpretations of Sophisticated Lady, Lush Life, Mood Indigo and, perhaps best of all, a gorgeous version of the neglected All Too Soon. It was a standout in a show that was deftly stirred, not crudely shaken.
Ray Comiskey
Tallaght Choral Society and Orchestra/Armstrong: NCH, Dublin.
Mendelssohn - Elijah
Although he was born in Hamburg to an intellectually distinguished Jewish family, Felix Mendelssohn became the Victorian composer par excellence. He dedicated his Scottish Symphony to "HM Queen Victoria of Great Britain and Ireland", and in 1846, a year before his early death, at the age of 39, he was appointed director of the Birmingham Festival. It was that appointment that led to the première of his oratorio Elijah taking place in the heartland of industrial Britain.
Most lovers of choral music have probably sat through anodyne performances of Elijah that justify all the negative associations of the epithet Victorian. Mark Armstrong, conductor of Tallaght Choral Society, sees the work differently. In the programme note he called Elijah "the most dramatic oratorio ever written", and his musical approach did a lot to enliven a work that is all too often delivered with the heavy hand of predictability.
His greatest success was in his handling of the choir. Bass Andrew Slater was an incisive Elijah, although he sometimes achieved his results at the cost of rushing and the occasional bark. Soprano Franzita Whelan dramatised her music at the expense of a distorted vocal line, drawn out of shape through a heavy emphasis that was driven more by words than by music. Contralto Clíona McDonough and tenor Emmanuel Lawler were altogether milder in manner but sometimes sounded a little disengaged, although their lightness of voice was balanced by the conductor.
With the orchestra presented more as an adaptable backdrop to the singing than a contributor in its own right, Armstrong's passion for Mendelssohn's best-loved oratorio was most thoroughly revealed in the range of colour and response he encouraged from his choral singers.
On the one hand his choir sounded easeful in projection, save when forceful expression was called for, and on the other they were fearless when dramatic declaration was required.
The sense of internal illumination, of individual lines being controlled by independent musical intelligence, contributed strongly to a sense, altogether too rare in the performances of large amateur choirs in Ireland, that these singers had real freedom of expression in this performance.
They conveyed a real and sometimes thrilling sense of mastery, and they were under the command of someone who knew exactly what he wanted to do with it.
Michael Dervan
Finghin Collins: The Helix, Dublin.
Mozart - Sonata In B Flat K333. Brahms - Piano Pieces Op 118. Schubert - Impromptus In G Flat D899 No 3 and A Flat D899 No 4. Prokofiev - Sonata No 3. Wagner/Liszt - Isoldens Liebestod. Liszt - Rigoletto Paraphrase
The bulk and weight of a piano ensure that very few pianists can afford the luxury of travelling with their own instruments.
It's a bit of a lottery whether a venue's piano will serve the chosen programme well, and
the odds in that lottery diminish rapidly if the instrument is
less than a full-size concert grand.
For his recital at the Space, the smallest of the Helix's three performing spaces, on Thursday, Finghin Collins was supplied with a Steinway two sizes down from a concert grand, an instrument you can expect to hear protesting at repertoire as heavy as the Prokofiev and Liszt of Collins's second half, as well as in the more driven passages in Brahms's Op 118.
The two Liszt pieces, one a transcription, the other a fanciful paraphrase, call for a super lyricism with adornments of lightly worn virtuosity that was out of reach on this occasion, the tuneful paraphrase reaching closer to its target than the emotionally searing Wagner.
In the Mozart, Brahms and Schubert of the first half, Collins presented the music in a safe middle ground. He projected melodic lines comfortably over accompaniments and left the darker undertones of Mozart's chromatic slow movement unexplored.
Yet there's sometimes an extra edge of excitement to be found in mismatches between instrument and repertoire, a bit like the squeal and smoke of burning rubber in high-speed cornering.
The effect kicked in for Prokofiev's Third Sonata, a one-movement torrent with reflective episodes. There was an edge-of-the-seat quality to Collins's playing here, to which the audience responded with unbridled enthusiasm.
Michael Dervan
Susan Doyle: Bank of Ireland, Dublin.
Kaija Saariaho - NoaNoa. Scott McLaughlin - Excused From The Laws Of Gravity. Arild Suárez - Solo No 3, Dolmance. Benjamin Dwyer - Crow Echoes. Zack Browning - Network Slammer
The virtuosity of the flautist Susan Doyle is all the more impressive for being quiet. It was perfect for this concert, which included the winning works in the Mostly Modern-IMRO Young Irish Composers' Competition and the Mostly Modern International Composers' Competition (both in association with AIC).
The international winner was the Spanish-born composer Arild Suárez, whose Solo No 3 , Dolmance was the only work that did not include electronics. This left the composer with nowhere to hide, and if he carries on writing music like this he does not need to.
It acknowledges the expressive qualities of the flute without milking them. Its ideas are simple yet idiomatic, distinctive and without cliché. The composer knows how long he can sustain material and how to use contrast in an intimate yet dramatic way. I would like to hear more of this man's work.
The Irish winner was Scott McLaughlin's Excused From The Laws Of Gravity. It sets the live flute against sustained, subtly undulating recorded sound, so the components seem to be responding to one another. As the title suggests, it could have gone on indefinitely. Yet it knows exactly what it is doing.
Crow Echoes, by the Mostly Modern director Benjamin Dwyer, reworks material from his ensemble work Scenes From Crow and brings to life the theatrical aspects of the earlier work. The soloist uses four sizes of flute, and creates non-flute sounds via percussion and voice, all against an elaborate web of recorded sound.
Extravagant stuff: these premières were stylishly framed by Kaija Saariaho's NoaNoa and Zack Browning's cheeky and engaging Network Slammer.
Martin Adams
