Crash Ensemble

La barque mystique - Tristan Murail

It's D, Jim, but not as we know it - Siobhan Cleary

Le reveil profond - Scelsi

Talea - Gerard Grisey

Treize couleurs du soleil couchante - Tristan Murail

Accumulation - Judith Ring

Pres - Kaija Saariaho

For its debut concerts as resident ensemble in the Project Arts Centre, the Crash Ensemble offered last Friday and Saturday a focussed programme concentrating on the spectral school of composition. Spectralism is a movement that originated in France in the late 1970s, and it's a form of composition based on the analysis of the sound spectra which define musical timbre.erard Grisey (who died two years ago), and Tristan Murail. What's involved is not really quite as abstract as it may sound. Musical scales as we know them are actually derived from the harmonics of sound spectra, and Schoenberg's use of timbre manipulation to create the third of his Op. 16 orchestral pieces took place over 90 years ago.

Not much has ever been heard of the core spectralists in concert in Dublin, and, sadly, there was a barrier last weekend to Crash's pioneering spectral programme. The problem was the acoustic of the new Project Arts Centre. This is not so much dry, as dead. Although this is music which, with its micro-colliding events, needs the lingering sonic halo of a supportive acoustic, the electronically-processed sound world of Murail's Treize couleurs du soleil couchante, with copious added reverberation, actually made less of an impression than Grisey's unamplified Talea where, in spite of the dryness, the gestures stood more effectively revealed.

The music of the slightly younger Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho (born 1952), speaks both more directly and with a more thoroughgoing sensuality. Pres for cello and electronics creates a world that is at once familiar and surprising. Both Murail and Grisey were influenced by that Italian loner Giacinto Scelsi (19051988) who, as long ago as 1959, wrote Four Pieces for Orchestra, each based on a single note. Le reveil profond for solo double bass has similar meditative and exploratory concerns in what is essentially a decorated elaboration of a single sound.

That sort of concern was also evident in Siobhan Cleary's It's D, Jim, but not as we know it. Focussing on clearly identified issues seems to be one of Cleary's hallmarks, and this recent piece brings tuning and electronics to bear on material reduced to its barest essentials. The one tape piece on the programme, newcomer Judith Ring's Accumulation, was also focused and unforced in its response to its material. The shuddering electronic sound was like an all-enveloping bath, and, by a long shot, the music best adapted to the sonic peculiarities of the venue.