A Feast of Fiddles

THIS was "a celebration of violins and violinists through their centuries . . . classical, traditional, gypsy, French and jazz".

Pianist "Professor" Peter O'Brien opened on a Bach Prelude; Geraldine O'Grady and Oonagh Keogh (violins) arrived with Anthony Byrne (piano) and The Queen Sheba. They wasted no horsehair in perfect visual unison, maintaining a fine counterpoint on swapping plucked strings and bouncing bows.

Rimsky Korsakov's Bumble Bee was put on LSD in an attempt to break a flight record, O'Grady pursuing it by memory. Keogh's solo beastie was Shostakovich's Gadilt; together they modestly concluded on the engaging terrain of Sarasate's Navarra.

O'Brien's effortless solos celebrated Fats Waller, his uniting classical, ragtime and jazz. Paddy Glackin (fiddle) and Micheal O Domhnaill (guitar) added native colour to this mosaic with Paddy Canny reels and then Willy Clancy jigs, which were marred by the absence of PA, the guitar sound being too strong for fiddle on these. Tommy Potts's Butterfly slip jig oriented them to the O'Grady/Keogh focus before O Domhnaill glottal stopped them out with a "port a bheal" into a final Jenny's Welcome to Charlie.

An interlude of Scott Joplin's Entertainer displayed an alternative taste and visual side to the strings, introducing the virtuosie Patrick Collins, of the Cafe Orchestra, delicately like a spider's web on a light breeze. His volume suffered even more from the absence of electronic mediation, playing as he did to the piano. A properly miked Loyko was the final fantasy in this delicatessen of genes and pedigrees: stirring "as Ruisis" song, bass style, off beat, slapped and finely muted guitar, wild adventure on fiddles, dialogue between top and bottom, strings, lira like, weeping harmonies.

A terrific finale involved all this with the violins, but sadly threw away the communitas and challenge by excluding the traditional players.