Irish Timescritics review the Syrius Trioat the Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire and Teddy Thompsonat Whelan's.
Syrius Trio, Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire
Beethoven Piano Trio in B flat Op 96 (Archduke)
Benjamin Dwyer Piano Trio No 2 (Passacaille)
Bloch Three Nocturnes
Schumann Trio in D minor Op 63
Music Network's scheme for burgeoning artists, Young Musicwide, was the catalyst for this week's tour by the Syrius Trio: violinist Elizabeth Cooney, cellist Jane O'Hara and pianist Bobby Chen.
With Beethoven's and Schumann's lengthiest piano trios, and a substantial recent work by Irish composer Benjamin Dwyer, the programme could hardly be on a grander scale.
To begin the second half, there's a welcome palate-cleanser in the form of Ernst Bloch's diverting Three Nocturnes (1924).
Tuesday's performance at the Pavilion Theatre meant a struggle with intractable acoustics and the background breeze of air conditioning.
Yet at its best the string tone was grainy and vibrant, while the piano balance - so often problematical with these forces - was excellent.
Despite its vast proportions, the Beethoven made an engaging opener. The pacing was leisurely, the mood sunny, and rhythmic detail and (especially) dynamics were for the most part finely coordinated.
Its sarabande rhythm beautifully nuanced, the epic slow movement never flagged in interest.
The Schumann, however, called for more interpretive stealth, and although there were colourful effects in the first movement's central section, the performance didn't entirely rescue the surrounding music from its amorphous complexities.
In the slow movement too, while the playing was delicate and expressive, the ethos of polyphonic other-worldliness remained just beyond these young performers' grasp. The Scherzo, with its crackling ricochets and energetic phrasing, had been the best movement.
Dwyer wrote Passacaille for the Syrius Trio some months ago, and was so taken with their playing of it (it was easy to hear why) that he has added an introductory movement.
The new prelude pays homage to the one from Bach's Lute Suite BWV 996, yet neither here nor in the ensuing variations is there any trace of facile Neo-classicism.
Rather, both movements evince the impressive technical and emotional integration that's an ever-increasing characteristic of Dwyer's work .- ANDREW JOHNSTONE
Teddy Thompson, Whelan's, Dublin
If ever there was proof of Darwinian Theory, it's alive and kicking in the blood, sinew and bones of Teddy Thompson.
From the minute he loped on stage, a nervous Glenn Tillbrookian ensemble of red shoes, shirt tails and skinny tie, he stilled his expectant audience with his spellbinding stage presence.
His face is more world weary than it appears on his CD covers, but as soon as he launched into Shine So Bright, (the opener on 2006's Separate Ways), unleashing that utterly distinctive voice into the ether, there was no doubt as to who was in control.
Distilling the verbal alacrity of Richard and the vocal nuances of Linda Thompson, evolution's been more than kind to the boy.
His years living in the US have served him well, his voice a velveteen curdle of chinks and shadows ideally suited to the new country of last year's offering, Upfront And Down Low.
What distinguishes him from countless Nashville wannabes is his deadpan delivery of country's gloriously maudlin chorus lines (from Charlie Louvin's You Finally Said Something Good (When You Said Goodbye) to Walking The Floor Over You), each delivered with a quintessentially English deadpan humour, that couldn't but bear kinship with the scathing satire of Richard Thompson.
Death, suicide, failed relationships: if these songs were all autobiographical, then Teddy Thompson's already lived the lives of 10 men long before he's come within spitting distance of his 35th birthday.
Turning The Gun On Myself straddled a fine line between utter egocentricity and searing insight into despair and melancholia, while Walk The Line saw him reworking a time-worn idea with sparkling freshness, finding just the right chords, yet never exploiting them beyond their emotional limit, a master class in songwriting restraint.
Thompson's got that perfect mix of snarling cynicism and emotional vulnerability that helps to push him head and shoulders beyond most of his contemporaries (bar, maybe, Rufus Wainwright, his sometime collaborator).
Solo performances don't come much more chillingly brilliant than this. - SIOBHÁN LONG
