The Irish Times reviews a selection of this week's events
Currie, RTÉ NSO/MacMillan NCH, Dublin
MICHAEL DERVAN
Fergus Johnston– Scenes and Interludes from The Earl of Kildare. Jennifer Higdon– Percussion Concerto. James MacMillan– The Sacrifice, Three Interludes. Giya Kancheli– Symphony No 5. The RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and visiting conductor James MacMillan put all their eggs in one basket for this concert. The oldest piece on the programme was Georgian composer Giya Kancheli's Fifth Symphony, premiered in Tbilisi in 1978, and the next oldest, Jennifer Higdon's Percussion Concerto, was written in 2005.
The concerto is a high-octane work, a dynamic showcase for its dedicatee, soloist Colin Currie. And, with the percussion instruments spread across the front of the stage, it provided a spectacle for the eye as well as the ear. Currie is one of those percussionists who exhibits a jaw-dropping virtuosity, and Higdon’s concerto doesn’t stint in giving him opportunities to show off. Musically, the best moments in this high-energy roller-coaster ride were those which took the unusual step of joining together the orchestral percussion section and the soloist, to create textures and spatial effects which sounded totally fresh.
Freshness was not top of the agenda in the three-movement Scenes and Interludes Fergus Johnston has scored for full orchestra from his chamber opera, The Earl of Kildare. The first movement seemed to want to dwell in the aura of 1920s expressionism. The barber's pole style perpetual descent at the opening of the second sounded decidedly Ligetian, though the chomping percussive pulsations of its climax did not. And the third movement was busily garrulous.
There was a much glossier orchestral finish to the Three Interludes from James MacMillan's 2006 opera, The Sacrifice, pieces which emulate the emotional scenarios of Hollywood blockbusters, thriving on thrills at every turn, and fraught with the burden of alarm. Kancheli's Fifth Symphony is, in the composer's words, "about life and death, about that understanding of the tragedy of human existence, which sooner or later overtakes each one of us, like a clap of thunder". It's a work that cuts between stillness and violence, evocative simplicity and disturbing havoc. It was at once the evening's most straightforward musical proposition, and also the one which stirred most deeply. James MacMillan and the players of the NSO brought to it the same wide-ranging responses and persuasive performing fervour they had shown throughout the concert.
Eddi Reader
Droichead Arts Centre, Drogheda
TONY CLAYTON-LEA
Such is the nature of Eddi Reader as a performer that she is as comfortable in the Royal Albert Hall as she is in a provincial arts theatre space, where the front row almost touches the porch-like stage. It's an eyeball-to-eyeball scenario that might snooker a less experienced singer, but Reader seems too professional an artist to allow herself to be spooked. The Scottish singer – now approaching her 50th year – also doesn't allow herself to be shoehorned into any particular style, which is why this thoroughly engaging gig traipses through her career choices of jazz-inflected pop (Fairground Attraction's The Moon is Mine, Perfect), low-key folk/pop ( Simple Soul), soul baring contemporary folk ( Bell, Book and Candleand Patience of Angels) and, perhaps her most fulfilling creative style, a smooth-edged roots-based pop best highlighted on Silent Bells.
Allied to these styles were several quite sweetly aching forays into rendering the poems and songs of Robert Burns (who Reader describes as the “fantastic ghost who haunted me” and, rather less scarily, “the sky on the other side of the bridge”).
Backed throughout by a band that included Boo Hewerdine (the composer of the aforementioned Bell, Book and Candleand Patience of Angels), Irish accordionist Alan Kelly, UK folk supremo John McCusker and Heidi Talbot (who supported), Reader's voice throughout ranged from the husky to the angelic.
Now operating in a less commercially oriented arena than heretofore, the obvious lack of showbiz glitz suits her; everything about her and her music seems rooted in the decent ordinariness of living a life without abject guile, cunning or cynicism.
Perfect? No, just right and proper.
