Reflection John Kinsella December Preludes - Philip Flood Undulations No 1 - Marian Ingoldsby Slow Dance and Toccata - John Gibson Time Drops - Eibhlis Farrell Two Cameos - Bernard Geary Time Drops - Eibhlis Farrell Game - Colman Pearce Toccata - Eric Sweeney
Many composers for piano turn to styles with French ancestry when writing evocatively. This was much in evidence in Anthony Byrne's recital at the National Concert Hall's John Field Room on Sunday afternoon.
The music by contemporary Irish composers had been chosen because, Byrne said, he liked it. He certainly conveyed the spirit of each piece.
This French ancestry, developed from Messiaen, Ravel and Debussy, emerges in a penchant for clustered, colouristic harmonic vocabulary and for rhythmic fluidity. It was evident in Colman Pearce's Game (1997) (a first performance), in Philip Martin's Soundings (1996), in John Gibson's disconnected Slow Dance and Toccata (1994/5) and in John Kinsella's Reflection (1995) which, of all these pieces, showed the most convincing sense of structure and rhythmic focus.
The programme included three works written in their composers' early days. Philip Flood's December Preludes (1987) uses minimalist techniques.
