Irish Times writers review Vengerov, Zilberstein at the National Concert Hall, Novemberfest at the Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire,
Vengerov, Zilberstein
National Concert Hall, Dublin
Michael Dervan
Maxim Vengerov is a virtuoso violinist with, musically speaking, an extremely sweet tooth. And the musical confectionery he enjoys is not just of the sweet and sentimental kind but also, and perhaps especially, that which is most elaborately decorated. He's in his element in works that inconvenience the player every bit as much as they delight their listeners. And if the composer has failed to exploit every opportunity for elaborate display, then Vengerov is more than happy to throw in some extras.
These days the repertoire of short, flashy pieces is usually left until the end of an evening. Mostly, in fact, it's left until the encores. But Vengerov likes to pack it in at the end of a programme, and on Sunday he gave over the whole of the second half to it, providing in the programme a list of the pieces he would choose from, then straying even beyond those in the choices he made.
He was partnered by Lilya Zilberstein, who was not just a tower of strength and common sense but also a player who balanced the potential conflicts between composers and the great star on the stage with sure judgment.
The first half was given over to Brahms (the Scherzo in C minor and the Sonata in G, Op 78), and the contrast with last year, when the whole programme was of Brahms, could hardly have been more striking in terms of overall musical balance and clarity of thought. But it was when Vengerov got away from the serious stuff that he sounded his best. His playing of the Brahms of the first half was akin to a drive around town in a Ferrari: exceptional but not quite to the point.
In the tricksy showpieces he is on the open road. He can flick his way through the most daunting of double stops without showing any apparent effort, rattle off left-hand pizzicato as if it were as simple as dropping a bundle of marbles and generally race around the instrument with the greatest of ease.
His selection of showpieces included some that were anything but hackneyed: the Variations on an original theme by Wieniawski, the Caprice Ysaÿe arranged out of a waltz for piano by Saint-Saëns, the inevitable Paganini. But the greatest pleasures came in less overtly demanding music, in his tactful, understated handling of Kreisler's Liebesleid and Liebesfreud and Rachmaninov's Vocalise, in which he was matched in tact and style by the fine control of Zilberstein's pianism.
Of course, showman that he is, Vengerov knew well that the true end-of-concert encores would have to outstrip the encores that had been bundled into the programme proper. And in his choice of Brahms's G minor Hungarian Dance and Bazzini's "scherzo fantastique", La Ronde Des Lutins, both wound up almost to breaking point, he managed exactly that.
Novemberfest
Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire
Michael Seaver
The American choreographer Deborah Hay once began a speech to dance therapists by barking like a dog for two minutes. For her, you will be unsurprised to hear, most dance is too serious. In The Ridge, performed as part of the Pavilion's mini-festival of international dance, Ella Clarke and Julie Lockett perform with a cheekiness that its creator would approve.
Hay emphasises improvisation, so she can create situations "where you don't know what you're looking at. I'm trying to pull out all the handles that make you think you know". Some of those freedoms have to be curbed when you adapt her solo studio improvisations for the theatre, as Clarke and Lockett have done. Fortunately, they lose none of her spontaneity or immediacy.
As the audience take their seats the pair are jogging around the stage in skirts, trainers and short-sleeved shirts. Then, when the house lights dim, they begin twisting sharply angled arms around fulcrums in their body. Glances at the other dancer keep a connection between the two. Other moments of convergence emerge: Lockett snaps her fingers and exhales slowly while Clarke sidesteps along a diagonal. Later they utter nonsense consonants that transform to breathed vowels as they travel upstage.
The Polish-Finnish duo who make up Trava Theatre Company begin Hahmomania by making noises that sound like people eating with their mouths open. The two strikingly bald women, dressed in coarse netted fabric, are like dysfunctional cyborgs in an absurd futuristic world. Although their movement is unpredictable, the choreography seems too carefully planned, and the music just a bit too obvious in its interaction. No Time For Wasa, their second piece, is equally madcap but a clearer success, both intriguing and entertaining.
The hymn that drifts in and out of Facing Up, by the Dutch choreographer Frank van de Ven, celebrates the Shaker practice of frenzied dancing. Like the electrolytes buzzing around van de Ven's bottle of "SmartWater", his jittery movements come from interior impulses. His face contorts, a grimacing mouth pulling his head and then his body off balance, loose limbs left behind. You assume that he will use a chair, a table and several other props later on the piece, giving it a dramatic context. Unfortunately, this turns out not to be the case.
The prop in Pandora 88 causes no such problems. A tall, narrow open-fronted box is the restricted playing space for a duet by Wolfgang Hoffmann and Sven Till. Inspired by Brian Keenan's book An Evil Cradling, it reflects Keenan's description of "that vast playhouse of situations, resources and creative impulses" his experience formed. Faced with boredom, the two characters create games and other diversions to pass the time, but their claustrophobic environment drives them to suffocating despair.
Although this is a dance piece that uses much that is theatrical, it has been formed with a choreographer's sensibility, matching movement gesture to musical gesture and movement narrative to dramatic narrative.
