Irish Times writers review a selection of music events.
Gabriele Mirabassi Trio, Coach House, Dublin Castle
Ray Comiskey
If Italian clarinettist Gabriele Mirabassi had described his Music Network concert at the Coach House simply as veni, vidi, vici, it's doubtful if anyone in the utterly charmed audience would have disputed it. He came, he saw and he conquered, with a trio of luminous talent.
Virtuosity was merely the starting point for him, accordionist Luciano Biondini and tuba player Michel Godard to launch into a programme of beguiling jazz. Spoken here with a decidedly European accent, specifically if not exclusively Italian, it drew on roots that lay as much in folk as in jazz, expressed with a commitment, passion and wit that were almost overwhelming.
By the standards this amazing trio sets, the opening Girotondo, with its rapidly swirling arabesques, took some time to settle.
After that, however, came a rich and varied succession of engaging performances; a slow, sonorous Gorizia, in which the sheer physicality and emotion of Mirabassi's playing were stunning; Latakia Blend, a kind of musical credo for the group, which included a superb unaccompanied accordion interlude; a stately Burley e Perique, emphasising the trio's control of dynamics; and a brilliant Passacaille, composed by Godard, in which he and Biondini duetted with breath-taking control.
This description does no justice to the warmth, ebullience and sheer joy of their music, epitomised in Michelone, where Godard's virtuosity was put to the most amusing of uses. Nor does it hint at the beauty and poetry of the clarinet and accordion duets on Mirabassi's own delightful Hotel Danubio and, as part of an encore, Duke Ellington's beautiful Come Sunday.
Add to that the trio's coruscating excursions into Brazilian choro music and the scale of the musical variety they can command is apparent.
There is also the trio's individual and collective instrumental skill to be considered - and the intelligence, imagination and taste with which it is deployed. The fact that all this is couched in so much warmth, wit and lyricism makes it virtually irresistible.
The Gabriele Mirabassi Trio continue their Music Network tour with concerts in Tinahely (today), Cahir (tomorrow), Kilmallock (Saturday, October 18th) and Monaghan (Sunday, October 19th)
Vox21, Bank of Ireland Arts Centre, Dublin
Martin Adams
Leo Brouwer - Guitar Quintet. John McLachlan - Radical Roots, Racines radicales. Benjamin Dwyer - Guitar Quintet
The Bank of Ireland Mostly Modern series is back. It opened with music by living composers, played by four string players from Vox21, along with guitarist Benjamin Dwyer.
Leo Brouwer's Guitar Quintet was composed in 1958. As always with Brouwer, the writing for guitar is impeccably idiomatic; and he sets the strings to work now with and now against the ideas carried by the guitar. It is a skilful piece, featuring folksy neo-Classical textures which bear comparison with early Tippett or some works by Bartók. The concert included two first-time performances, one being of John McLachlan's string trio Radical Roots, Racines Radicales. This is an obsessive piece. In the first part, tiny motivic fragments are repeated and extended, mostly in octaves and unisons, or in calculated distortions of them. In the second part, related material appears as dense, slow chords; and only there, where the silences between chords were oddly lacking in tension, did it seem that an intellectual construct had lost touch with what worked aurally. That was reinforced by the contrast with the first part, which kept you listening as it confounded expectation.
The other première was Benjamin Dwyer's Guitar Quintet, a radical reworking of his 1998 Guitar Concerto. The result is a tighter piece which, despite the loss of orchestral colour, is more consistently absorbing, partly because the discourse between guitar and strings is more immediate.
In all these works, Vox21's playing was sometimes a bit untidy. But it was nicely coloured and had a rhythmic energy which gave each performance sufficient authority.
RTÉCO/Wagner, Mahony Hall, The Helix, Dublin
Martin Adams
Dvorák - Serenade for Strings; Martinu - Violin Concerto No 2; Mozart - Symphony No 38 (Prague)
Prague was the subject of the second concert in the RTÉ Concert Orchestra's A Tale of Four Cities series.
Both as an introduction to the artistic policies of the new principal conductor Laurent Wagner, and as an indicator of what he might achieve with an orchestra whose potential is at least as substantial as anything it has achieved thus far, this series is encouraging.
Martinu's Violin Concerto No 2 was composed in 1943, when the composer was living in the US. It shows him as the most internationalist of Czech composers, and by any standards is demanding, especially for the soloist. Michael d'Arcy was in full command. He combined wiry, highly sprung rhythm with subtle variety of tone and a panache which was all the more winning for being quiet. In many respects, this performance was the concert's highlight.
The RTÉCO's string sections were on strong form in Dvorák's Serenade for Strings, with a striking ability to sustain a slow tempo and explore precise colours. In Mozart's Symphony No 38 (Prague) the speeds of the outer movements were fast, yet never felt rushed. However, the slow movement was a little short-changed via an over-constant pulse and an unwillingness to relish the occasional moment.
However, this was a minor quibble in a strong concert. Laurent Wagner has a knack of leaving details to look after themselves while keeping a firm yet unobtrusive hand on general character; and it was a treat to be in a warmly resonant hall where you could hear everything. Under those conditions the RTÉCO's playing was confident, even when clarity of detail was under pressure. Everyone knew where they were going and the result they were aiming for.
Series continues at the Helix on October 19th and 25th. For details tel: 01-7007000.
Sebadoh, Whelans, Dublin
Ed Power
A slightly bashful indie-rock duo who sing awkwardly about crumbling relationships and familial angst may strike you as unlikely candidates for the nostalgia circuit. Yet it is nostalgia that has brought Sebadoh's Lou Barlow and Jason Lowenstein together after a five-year hiatus and over a decade since their poignant confessional-rock first touched a nerve with the introverted loser in us all.
For this acoustic reunion was less a celebration of Sebadoh's music than of the group's formative days, spent supporting unpleasant punk bands and releasing albums that nobody bought. Had it been anyone else, a generous supply of sick bags might have been required. Thankfully, Sebadoh's reminiscences were worth sharing. Written when Barlow and Loewenstein were barely out of their teens, the early (and utterly obscure) tracks
that dominated this show were so hopelessly shy and romantic
only the most embittered could resist.
Taking the stage wearing rumpled expressions that suggested they'd just tumbled out of bed, Barlow (on guitar and vocals) and Loewenstein (on bass and backing vocals), joked they had thrown the set together in a frantic two-day jam after the former drove through the night from LA to the latter's Kentucky hideaway.
Given Sebodoh's reputation as shambolic performers it probably wasn't the most shocking admission ever unleashed on an audience. And while they are more polished than before, Barlow remains a brittle frontman. He is an accomplished guitarist but an awkward entertainer, his sharp humour struggling to paper over an apparent discomfort with playing live never fully conquered. If Woody Allen fronted a cult indie band he'd doubtless look a lot like this bedraggled, bespectacled introvert.
At his side, Lowenstein reminded you of a protective older brother (although in fact the younger of the pair), idly strumming his bass guitar as if killing time on his porch back home.
It's true, of course, that nothing rankles like the sight of musicians digging for paydirt on the come-back trail. However, barely a whiff of cynicism tainted Sebadoh's tentative get-together.
As vulnerable and beguiling as they ever were, Barlow and Lowenstein are two nerds in the process of extracting a beautiful revenge on the sneering world.
