{TABLE} In Extremis ....................................... Ian Wilson Bane ............................................... Ian Wilson Frammenti di Giacomo ............................... Ian Wilson I Sleep at Waking .................................. Ian Wilson Mais quand elle sourit ............................. Ian Wilson {/TABLE} THE music of Belfast born Ian Wilson (b. 1964) has attracted a fair amount of attention in several countries. Listening to yesterday's lunch time concert, given by Concorde in the National Concert Hall's John Field Room as part of the Music Now series, it was easy to see why. Yet this is music whose appeal resides entirely in surface features.
Wilson's music has many appealing aspects. His writing is challenging yet idiomatic. His harmonic and melodic styles are accessible, though not superficial. His ideas catch the ear and he knows how long to sustain them. He has a feel for sonority.
Yet his musical world is curiously undynamic. In Extremis (1988), for clarinets and percussion, represents the shape of the letter "X" by progressing from extremities of pitch contrast to middle register and back again. Yet this progress has little inherent drive. Similar points apply to Bane (1989) for violin with digital delay. Its interest lies in immediate sonorous effect.
Given Wilson's melodic and harmonic vocabulary, real part writing is needed if progress through a piece is to amount to more than a sequence of pleasing events. This was emphasised by the more sophisticated formal thinking of I Sleep at Waking (1995) for alto saxophone, and the piano trio Mais quand elle sourit. Significantly, the extreme brevity of each section in Franmenti di Giacomo (1988) seven settings of Joyce for soprano and cello enforced a balance between material and expressive result.
The solo and duo playing from Concorde Tine Verbeke (soprano), Paul Roe (clarinets and saxophone), Alan Smale (violin), David James (cello), Richard O'Donnell (percussion) and Jane O'Leary (piano) was persuasive. Apart from a rhythmically amorphous account of the piano trio, this was one of the best performances I have heard from Concorde in recent years.