Incline Thine Ear - Colin Mawby
Let God Arise - Colin Mawby
Song of the Returning Exiles - Bernadette Marmion
Winter Psalms - Benjamin Dwyer
It was a full house for the lunchtime concert on Thursday at the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre, Foster Place, Dublin. The concert was part of the Bank of Ireland's "Mostly Modern" series and it included the winning entry in the Mostly Modern/IMRO Composition Competition.
The competition is designed for young or unestablished composers, and into the latter category comes Bernadette Marmion, who has behind her a long teaching career.
Song of the Returning Exiles is sure in technique and in vocal writing. In just a few minutes it gets through the text of Psalm 126 with little repetition. The harmonic style is a free, quasi-tonal chromaticism, while the clear part-writing and good range of sonorities probably make the piece pleasant to sing. Certainly, the National Chamber Choir and conductor Colin Mawby gave an authoritative performance.
A much more radical style was evident in Benjamin Dwyer's Winter Psalms. Written in 1995, this work features soprano saxophone as an occasional obbligato during the singing and as the provider of a Prologue and Interludes. The rewarding aspects of this music include its subtle scoring and the fact that dissonance arises from part-writing rather than from being thrown in for the effect of the moment.