Reviews

Irish Times critics review Pedro Carneiro

Pedro Carneiro The Coach House, Dublin Castle

Solo percussionist Pedro Carneiro says that within classical music, percussion is still often thought of as "a bit of a circus act".

It's a perception that demeans percussion - or at least percussion as conceived of and performed by someone of Carneiro's deep artistic conviction (quite apart from his immense virtuosity). The programme which the young Portuguese presented in Dublin on his Music Network tour - seemed designed to do no more or less than go to the heart of the music. If his playing was sometimes breathtakingly spectacular, it was a by-product of this primary aim.

After opening with his own lucid and impressively apt-sounding transcriptions for marimba of music by Bach and Schumann, Carneiro turned to works by fellow percussionists.

Tokyo-born Keiko Abe is credited with bringing the marimba out of amateur folk instrument status and into the classical mainstream. Her 1982 Variations on Japanese Children's Songs echo and combine the sounds and music of her own childhood.

A gentle but insistent energy grows out of overlapping ostinati, from the midst of which magically emerges the melodic line - no surprise after the way he handled the inside voices in both the Bach and Schumann.

The 2001 Kim, by Icelandic percussionist and composer Askell Másson, explores and extends the vocabulary of the snare drum. The result is thrilling and highly-charged and contains a huge diversity that avails of playing the rim and sides, playing the sticks against each other, stamping the feet, and partially covering the skin with a folded beer mat. The Puerto Rican Roberto Sierra achieves something similar for the bongos with his virtuosic 1982 Bong-o.

For these and other pieces Carneiro provided short but incisive and often witty spoken introductions that led the way through the less familiar details of a rare instrumental landscape.

His programme also included the Music Network commission Clockwork Monkey Machine by Bangor's Ed Bennett. While suffering somewhat in comparison with the advanced sophistication of the other works, and not quite delivering on its title, the 10-minute piece for marimba, pedal bass-drum and temple blocks had a strong, improvisatory character and plenty of energy.

Carneiro closed with Part B of Rebonds by Xenakis, a contemporary classic that pits 10 skinned instruments against 10 wood ones in a viscerally exciting contest.