VOX21

Wind Quintet - James Wilson

Wind Quintet No 3 - Frank Corcoran

Wind Quintet - John Buckley

This year's Bank of Ireland Mostly Modern concert series opened last Thursday at lunchtime with wind quintets by three living Irish composers. It was prefaced with a warm tribute from John Buckley, at 50 the youngest of the featured composers, to his teacher, James Wilson, who is 80 this year.

All three works were concerned with thematic concentration, linear textures and precise gestures. Buckley's quintet, written in 1977 and revised eight years later, is a three-movement work which wears technique on its sleeve and relishes the instruments' technical possibilities. James Wilson's quintet was composed in 1983 and was the most lyrical of the three works, much of it gentle and all of it precisely conceived. The most recent piece was Frank Corcoran's Wind Quintet No. 3, which was completed last year and is part of a series of chamber works written since Mad Sweeney of 1996. The members of VOX21 played with enough technical security and variety of tone to instil confidence and to make this an enjoyable concert. Yet it could have achieved much more. Each piece was sold a little short, because gestures and phrases were isolated from large-scale context. What was needed was rhythmic tension, not just during phrases, but between them - that timing of silence which puts you on tip-toe for the next event.