Berlioz rediscovered

{TABLE} Duo Seraphim ................... Eibhlis Farrell Les nuits d'ete ................ Berlioz Messe solennelle ............... Berlioz {/TABLE} BERLIOZ'S Messe solennelle is a recent rediscovery which allows a previously unavailable glimpse at the composer's earliest compositional leanings.

The piece, written when Herlioz was just 20 and in the second year of formal music study, was long believed lost. But a copy of the score was found in an Antwerp church in 1991. Publication, performance and recording all followed, and the cooperation of the Guinness Choir, Carlow Choral Society and the Eigse Carlow Arts Festival brought the work to Ireland for the first time for performances in Carlow and Dublin.

Not all of the Messe solennelle is actually unfamiliar. Music which we know, for instance, through the Symphonie fantastique and Requiem was first used in this early mass. This is one of the piece's major fascinations, as is the sheer sense of Berliozian bravado which coexists with youthful naivety and miscalculation; Berlioz exercised reliable judgment when he withdrew the piece as being not sufficiently in keeping with his later style.

With more of vigour than subtlety, David Milne's conducting at the NCH on Sunday did little to smooth out the young Berlioz's awkward turns. The combined choirs of around 140 voices proved an effective force, and the three soloists, Mary Hegarty (soprano), James Nelson (tenor) and Philip O'Reilly (bass), delivered their parts with clarity.

Directness was a feature, too, of Mary Hegarty's performance of Berlioz's song cycle, Les nuits d'ete. Her easy, forward tone, however, offered a pleasure that seemed distinct from the music - and oddly apart from it - in a performance which rarely penetrated below the surface.

The concert opened with a performance of the specially commissioned Duo Seraphim by Eibhlis Farrell. Scored for choir, organ, brass and strings, this piece, which was conducted by Blanaid Murphy, is cast in an idiom that might best be called post Stravinski an and takes careful account of the limitations of amateur choral singers. Its strangest feature was an ending that seemed inconclusive in the face of texts so celebratory.