O’Grady, Proud

St Michael’s Church, Dún Laoghaire

The organ series at St Michael's branched out again last Sunday. Not only was organist Malcolm Proud joined by soprano Róisín O'Grady, but he partnered her on harpsichord as well as organ.

O'Grady has an attractive, clear voice, but the acoustic of St Michael's was not kind to it. Grief and death were the subjects which dominated her musical choices, from Strozzi's Lagrime mie a che vi trattenetethrough Monteverdi's Voglio di vita uscirand Bach's Bist du bei mirto Purcell's Evening Hymn.

Unfortunately, the acoustic swallowed up all too many sounds, from less accented notes to consonants and vowels, so that the expressive weighting of music and words was evened out. Strange as it may seem, the harpsichord came across with a level of detail that was simply not afforded the singing.

It was in the elaborate expressive convolutions of the opening Strozzi and in the altogether smoother world of the sung plain chant sections of Grigny's organ work, Ave maris stella, that O'Grady's potential could best be judged.

Proud relished the full-on manner of Grigny's organ writing, and was on top form in a Toccata by Frescobaldi, No 6 from the Second Book. Here every slightest brush of friction between contrapuntal lines and every flurry of embellishment was communicated with telling potency.