Reviews

A look at what is happening in the world of the arts.

Holl, Schiff

NCH, Dublin

András Schiff, whose musicianly and broad-ranging piano playing was at the centre of three chamber music concerts at the weekend, was joined for his concluding concert by bass baritone Robert Holl.

Their selection of Lieder was discerning, and it emphasised Holl's considerable dramatic and oratorical powers. The texts ranged from the Old and New Testaments (Brahms, Vier ernste Gesänge) through the Renaissance (Wolf, Drei Gedichte von Michelangelo) to early Romanticism (selected Schubert settings of Mayrhofer, Goethe and Lappe).

As well as being a noted Lieder specialist, Holl is a distinguished Wagnerian, and spans more than two octaves with a rich, robust, and effortlessly magisterial forte. With Schubert, wisely, he attended less to the strophic style than to the recitative-like, the dark and the declamatory.

Paving the way for those weighty pronouncements, and signing them off with postludes of pin-dropping concentration, Schiff's intimate, clear and even-toned accompaniments could sometimes have afforded to be on the heavier side.

With Brahms and Wolf, however, came the evening's most complete agreement between instrument and voice, between voice and music. Throughout the programme, tempos were fluid and delivery was persuasive. Though much was slow, there seemed to be no need for speed; though nearly all was serious, there seemed to be no need for levity.

Andrew Johnstone

Simple Kid

An Crúiscín Lán, Cork

The lack of adequate venues was evident in Cork to welcome home Simple Kid, aka Ciaran McFeely, on the back of his latest album, SK2. The kid has been very much in the picture over the past few weeks, with five-star reviews and the UK music press heralding him as the next Beck. So a sell-out gig in his home town was hardly surprising. What was baffling, though, was the persistent sound problems throughout, from loud feedback to an unnerving ringing noise when McFeely added his laptop samples to the mix.

McFeely just got on with it. His openers, Lil King Kong and A Song of Stone from his new album, came across part Travelling Wilbury, part folktronic, before Staring at the Sun and Drugs cranked it up a notch.

The Twenty-Somethings saw McFeely's ironic observation in full flight, aided by visuals of a man running on screen with lyrics rolling by, karaoke-like.

To chants of "hang the roadie", McFeely was forced to restart Supertramps and Superstars due to feedback, wryly observing that by this stage the sound engineer must have been feeling like a "hostess on a Ryanair flight".

Still, talent will out, and moments of brilliance, such as It's Not Easy Being Green (which featured backing vocals by Kermit the Frog onscreen), The Ballad of Elton John and Serotonin, made it all worthwhile.

"Thanks a lot for listening, it's been a f**king strange one," remarked McFeely, after an encore which included a reworking of Average Man with a little help from Ozzy Osborne circa 1971. That McFeely held the audience in the face of technical adversity says a lot about the Kid. Damien Gough would have been back on the tour bus 10 minutes in. A final word for electric support act Sister, featuring McFeely's brother on guitar, making it a family affair to remember.

* Simple Kid plays Village, Dublin on Wed; Spring Airbrake, Belfast Thurs; Nerve Centre, Derry Fri; and Spirit Store, Dundalk on Sat

Brian O'Connell

Erdei, Lynch, McGonnell

Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin

Schumann - Märchenerzählungen. György Kurtág - Hommage à R Schumann. Mozart - Trio in E flat, KV 498

The Hommage à R Schumann by György Kurtág was a gem of a piece to include in the first "Sundays at Noon" concert since the Hugh Lane Gallery closed for renovations more than two years ago.

Kurtág's affectionate tribute bridges the gap between past and present, between the romantic expression of Schumann and the fresh immediacy of a composer living today. This bridging within the one piece can serve as a nice metaphor for the enticing breadth of programming which these free concerts have always enjoyed under discerning director Gavin O'Sullivan. The many regulars in the audience all looked very glad to be back.

And with good reason. Clarinettist Carol McGonnell, viola-player John Lynch and pianist Márta Erdei invested each of Kurtág's beautifully coloured micro-movements with a deep intensity in inverse proportion to its extreme brevity. The longer final movement grievingly evoked the tragedy of Schumann's final descent into madness and death.

Kurtág lifted his scoring of clarinet, viola and piano directly from Schumann's very late trio Märchenerzählungen, so that the two works are often paired in concerts, as here. In contrast with the mourning of the Hommage, Schumann's four short, unnamed "fairy tales" are full of life and energy, a testament to his ability to shut out his awful real-life circumstances and enter an inner creative world where he is whole in mind and body. The distance between harsh reality and calm inner world is at its greatest in the gentle third movement, given with moving understatement.

The trio effected a small but satisfying subversion of convention by being non-chronological and concluding with Mozart. Their playing of his E flat Trio was clean and very alive, the music-making full of spontaneous give-and-take.

Michael Dungan

The Cult

Ambassador Theatre, Dublin

Expectations were running high for The Cult's long-awaited trip to the capital: their first since 1989, when they had just released Sonic Temple. This time they kicked off with Lil Devil from the band's earlier opus, Electric, and it got the crowd straight into it.

Lead singer Ian Astbury has updated his image: the long hair and jacket are gone, replaced with sweatjacket and fuzzy hair, as if he was playing Jim Morrison of the Doors - but then, he did a tour not so long ago with that band, as a sort of stand-in for Morrison.

The crowd was delighted with Sweet Soul Sister and a wonderful, full acoustic version of Edie (Ciao Baby), with some great guitar work from Billy Duffy.

Astbury's voice carried over strong and clear throughout the show. Love Revolution and the powerful, foot-stompin' Firewoman got the crowd rocking, as did Rain and the driving chant Peace Dog. Wildflower was blasted out with a force that would put holes in the soles of your cowboy boots.

Astbury raised a groan when he informed us the night was coming to a close. At that stage there weren't many songs left in the band's rock library, except for the fans' real favourite, She Sells Sanctuary.

This was truly a memorable night, with many in the crowd close to tears as memories of the old, wild days came flooding back. You've been a long time gone, boys, so here's to an early return.

Colm Banville

RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet

National Gallery, Dublin

Schubert - Quartet in G D887. John Corigliano - Quartet No 1

On their current tour, the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet give voice to two composers' starkly contrasting inner visions, one tortuous, the other profoundly psychological.

In both, its proportions and its textures (bowed tremolandos are a copious ingredient), Schubert's 15th and final quartet resembles his music for much larger forces. Cadences are constantly held up by digressions into strange keys, and melodies are faltering and distended.

The Vanbrugh Quartet chose to emphasise the disjointedness of the first movement's declamations with a flexible tempo and some held-back accentuation, and rattled through the oft-repeating material of the scherzo and finale with never a hint of ennui.

Some welcome relief came with the hurdy-gurdy accompaniment and quaint, song-like strains of the trio to the scherzo. It was an unflaggingly energetic reading, but not one to convince you that this extraordinary piece needs to be quite as lengthy, discursive, and hyperactive as it is.

Composed in 1995 for the farewell concerts of the Cleveland Quartet, and avowedly in the formal tradition of Bartók, John Corigliano's Quartet No 1 occupies a middle ground between representational and absolute music. There are echoes of chanting Moroccan muezzins. Sudden slight tempo alternations have the effect of channel-hopping between quite similar TV shows. And the pitch-bent siren-sounds of Doppler-effected emergency vehicles conjure up a bleak urban thoughtscape.

But all this imagery - by turns nostalgic, violent, and desolate - is a thoroughly integral part of Corigliano's abstract mélange of conventional intervals, counterpoint and non-note noises.

About the striking originality and finely judged expressiveness of this music, the Vanbrugh Quartet's compelling interpretation left no room for any doubt.

*Tours to Longford (Wed) and Cork (Thurs)

Andrew Johnstone