FOR several years the National Chamber Choir has marked International Women's Day and this year's concert was in St Patrick's Hall at Dublin Castle last Saturday night. Also participating was poet Catherine Phil McCarthy, who read selections of her poetry in an absorbing, gently eloquent tone.
The Women's Day concerts consist of music by women [composers. Increasingly, I find that this policy does a disservice to contemporary composers, for perforce it couples their music with that which time has not treated well. Saturday's programme, however, did include some Hildegard von Bingen. Ah, Hildegard! She always crops up and so she should, for her music soars across the intervening 800 years.
Pieces by the early 16th century Margaret of Austria and by Kassia, a 9th century Byzantine nun, had curiosity value. But Hildegard's O clarissima mater effortlessly trounced everything, especially Fanny Hensel Mendelssohn's Im Wald and two late 16th century pieces by Sulpetia Cesis.
The concert featured four living composers. In Emma, Lou Diemer's Three Poems by Oscar Wilde and Three Madrigals, where the piano parts were played by Dearbhla Brosnan, polished technique emphasises the lightweight nature of the easy listening, "let's be modern" style.
Eibhlis Farrell's Caritas abundant was receiving its first performance. Its calculated juxtapositions of consonance and dissonance are purposeful and held my attention.
The most gripping of the 20th century pieces was the disciplined, very eastern European Ballade, by Romanian born Violeta Dinescu.
For the first time the NCC, was conducted by Orla Barry, the director of the Palestrina Choir. The NCC's sound was focused in pitch and tone and achieved some breathtaking pianissimos. But everything was a bit careful. It might have projected more if Barry had been willing to take risks, to drive rhythm, to let the choir go, and to look at them more than at the score. But the overall result was promising and I would welcome a return match.