Although a concert of pre-recorded items may seem like a contradiction in terms, Andrew Johnstone enjoyed Siobhán Cleary's selection of taped works at the BoI Arts Centre, while Martin Adams was at tribute to the late James Wilson, led by Darragh Morgan and Mary Dullea.
Susan Doyle (flute)/Siobhán Cleary, Bank of Ireland Arts Centre, Dublin
A concert consisting almost entirely of pre-recorded items may seem like a contradiction in terms. Yet a "here's one I made earlier" approach is the only way that many of today's creative sound artists can present their work in a public forum.
Siobhán Cleary's thoughtful selection of taped works based on sampled acoustic material proved to be a curious mix of the impersonal and the personal - on the one hand because of the clinical nature of the medium, on the other because the absence of a performer meant that there was nothing to separate composer from listener.
At the heart of the programme was the second part of Roger Doyle's Charlotte Corday and the Lament of Louis XVI, whose bell chimes, gun shots and Napoleonic fanfares suggest a humane, post-modern answer to the 1812 Overture.
Symmetrically arranged around that were two classics of the genre (Holger Czukay's Boat Woman Song and Charles Dodge's He Destroyed Her Image), premières of two works by Cleary, and pieces by John Oswald - a composer for whom the sampling process verges on kleptomania.
His Z24, which opened the concert, is a simultaneous sounding of the opening bars of every CD recording of Also sprach Zarathustra that he could lay his hands on.
Without doubt, the participation of flautist Susan Doyle in Cleary's Ringsend Sky with Egret made for a welcome contrast to the taped works. But this was due also to the use of live rather than pre-recorded electronics.
Based, at the suggestion of Gerald Beirne, on his poem of the same name, this piece avoided the watery, haiku-like impressionism of its literary model. The performance quickly established a constructive dialogue between acoustics and electronics that gradually led to a perfectly timed climax. - Andrew Johnstone
Darragh Morgan (violin) /Mary Dullea (piano), Airfield House, Dundrum
Stravinsky - Ballad from The Fairy's Kiss. Piano Rag Music John Buckley - A Few Notes for Jim Martin O'Leary - Jim's Air
Henri Dutilleux - Le jeu des contraires
Wilson - Colloquy. Breeze and Calm Sonata No V Anthony Payne - of Knots and Skeins
As a tribute to James Wilson, who died in August at the age of 82, the Association of Irish Composers organised concerts on successive days at Airfield House, Dundrum, Co Dublin. I was present for the first, on Thursday, given by violinist Darragh Morgan and pianist Mary Dullea.
An audience of friends, colleagues and pupils heard music by James Wilson, other Irish composers, and continental composers he admired.
Stravinsky's ballad from The Fairy's Kiss and Piano Rag Music made one think differently about Wilson's own Colloquy from 1968, in which the violin pirouettes around obsessive ostinato patterns in the piano.
Listening to the complexity of Sonata No. V (2001), one could understand why Wilson might love the dazzling textures of Dutilleux's Le jeu des contraires, and the elaborate yet focused thinking in of Knots and Skeins, by his friend Anthony Payne.
Wilson's music does not sound French; but it has a lot more in common with that culture than with German music, both in technique and mode of expression. Perhaps that is because of its free form and detailed elaboration, qualities prominent in his solo violin piece Breeze and Calm from 1985.
The programme included two Irish works. Martin O'Leary's Jim's Air was a birthday present in 1992, and John Buckley's A Few Notes for Jim is a posthumous tribute. As the composer said, the title is ironic, for this solo violin piece brims with virtuosity.
Its complexities seemed to hold no terrors for Darragh Morgan. He and Mary Dullea played all the music for all they were worth, with a genuineness of feeling that James Wilson would have appreciated. - Martin Adams
