NCH, Dublin

Frank Corcoran

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Quasi una Fuga. Four Orchestral Prayers. Lutoslawski – Novelette.

The second programme of this year's RTÉ Horizonsseries was picked by Tipperary-born composer Frank Corcoran, professor of composition and theory at Hamburg's Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst.

Though a new version for full orchestra had been advertised, only the strings of the RTÉ NSO were on the platform for the opening item, Quasi una Fuga (2005).

It is one of more than a dozen works in Corcoran’s multiple-prize-winning œuvre to include the word “quasi” in their title.

And in this case “quasi” – as opposed to “fuga” – is definitely the operative word.

Four Orchestral Prayers (2006), which were receiving their first performance, take in an epigram of John Scotus Eriugena, the hymn Abide with Me (complete with stock Victorian tune, transfigured), a German proverb, and a sermon of Meister Eckhart.

This miscellany of theology and folk wisdom finds musical expression in a percussive, abstract score, evoking prayerfulness of a euphoric rather than a ritualised kind.

While Corcoran’s instrumentation isn’t ashamed of clutter, colour is invariably of the essence.

Standing in at just a few days’ notice for the indisposed Naomi O’Connell, mezzo-soprano Chloe Hinton piloted her way through the treacherous waters of the solo part with convincing self-assurance. In what might have been critical circumstances, her communicativeness exceeded expectations.

Conductor Colman Pearce drew from the often tousled textures a sense of graduated drive that became especially persuasive in the last of the Four Prayers, and paved the way for a compelling account of Lutoslawski’s suite of five muscular miniatures, Novelette.

For a grippingly concise finish, Corcoran could hardly have chosen better.