The Irish Timesreviews a selection of recent events
OSC/Marriner
NCH, Dublin
Beethoven– Symphonies Nos 4 and 3 (Eroica)
The combination of conductor Neville Marriner and the Orchestra of St Cecilia gave an indication why Marriner has such an international reputation. At the end of a concert that had been uplifting in effect yet patchy in quality, the audience was roused to a standing ovation by far more than Marriner’s knighthood, or the fact that at the age of 85 he’s still conducting, or even that the programme consisted of top-flight music in the shape of Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos 4 and 3 (Eroica).
Among the most rousing aspects of the evening were that the orchestra was doing several things at its top level, and that this success depended partly on the players’ seeing and hearing new things in a familiar repertoire. Those mutually reinforcing qualities owed a lot to Marriner’s discreet yet authoritative direction. He seemed to steer things along without dictating, and to place a lot of faith in the players’ abilities to do things for themselves.
One of the ironic consequences was that blips in the generally strong quality of the playing jumped out. I remember the poor wind tuning in parts of Symphony No. 4, and the fact that the Eroica Symphony took a few bars to settle down to a comfortable tempo; but in the face of the experience as a whole, I forget them.
I also remember the vividness with which the OSC paced both symphonies, and how the details of materials were shaped. In the slow movement of No. 4, for example, it was impressive to hear how the textures were layered, so that long-line melody seemed to hover, almost independently of nicely wrought detail. It was refreshing to hear that even the mighty Eroica can work perfectly well with an orchestra of just 38 players. MARTIN ADAMS
Grizzly Bear
Vicar Street, Dublin
Vicar Street was treated to an authentic slice of the Brooklyn music scene with the much-anticipated arrival of Grizzly Bear, while support from a solo St Vincent bolstered the borough’s reputation for being the world’s current indie capital.
The demure St Vincent, aka Annie Clark, looked dwarfed by the assortment of instruments around her, as if she was the lead singer of a band that had been erased, Photoshopped out of the picture. But while her physical presence didn’t exactly fill the stage, her songs increasingly filled the space, and her dizzying control of loops and effects pedals more than compensated for the lack of a band, proving she has the necessary ingredients for breakout success.
Then Grizzly Bear took their positions and crunched into Southern Point, the frenzied opener from their wonderful Veckatimestalbum, easily one of the finest, and most ambitious, releases of the year. The quartet have gradually grown into their position as indie darlings, accumulating acclaim and gathering kudos with each subsequent release, from 2004's Horn of Plenty, essentially a solo work by chief songwriter Ed Droste, to Yellow Housein 2006. The fact that they have gone from playing Whelans in 2007 to packing out Vicar Street is a measure of the success that can still be achieved by crafting cerebral, thoughtful rock music.
While it’s superficially accurate to say Grizzly Bear is Ed Droste’s band, in practice it is a far more democratic beast, with Daniel Rossen contributing almost as often on lead vocals, and multi-instrumentalist Chris Taylor and drummer Chris Bear chiming in on harmonies.
Under a delightful lighting rig – an array of bulbs in dangling glass jars– this production was as well crafted as the music was compelling. Theirs is a sound that's finely sculpted rather than merely performed, their exquisite vocal harmonies competing with layers of sound and occasional guitar-fuelled dissonance. While it perhaps fell short of being consistently enthralling, this was a wonderfully intricate performance, hugely impressive and often beautiful. DAVIN O'DWYER
Half 3 Heroes
Project Arts Centre
The revolution will be digitised. Set in Ireland in 2014, Emmet Kirwan's new play for Dublin Youth Theatre depicts a future of tech-savvy school students contending with State tyranny and a resurgent hardline Nationalism – conditions they consider borderline fascist, unconstitutional and, like, totallyunfair. Such is the balancing act in director Willie White's production, which must not only accommodate 21 performers, but also marry amplified political concerns to the daily quiet dramas of young individuals.
It isn’t an easy ask and Kirwan – a DYT graduate, performer and writer – is extended further by his scrupulousness. Giving most characters equal attention, he distributes his better lines evenly among the throng and tries on competing writing styles to contain their sprawling narratives. The first is poetry, where a corridor mill of students introduce themselves through rhyme: “Every generation experiences a different type of youth/ Exploding lyrical style of words and truth”. But that scheme is quickly traded for more standard-issue group patter, where Kirwan works hard to establish individual characterisation among future-
proof milieus: pheromone-addled knuckleheads, bitchy covens, earnest new kids in school, widely-vilified drama kids and would-be political leaders.
"Stop the deportations", goes one clarifying student slogan, and the thrust of Half 3 Heroesbecomes one of rebellion. In a dystopian school system within a shackled Republic, students named Kwame have been spirited away, while first generation Irish citizens with Polish or Kosovan parents face similar threats. That this ethnic panoply is not conspicuously present on the stage or among the cast seems slightly jarring. Is the future already here? Staging their own coup d'école, the students hole up in a gymnasium to broadcast their struggle via Bebo, but while the cast is consistently engaging, the production loses the verve of insurrection behind a checklist of youth concerns, its pace slackening between nods to bullying, underage drinking, fitting in or standing apart. More successfully, White and Kirwan draw subversive parallels between revolutions past and present. As the students reel off declarations, hoist flags, or bicker themselves into competing factions of idealists and destroyers, the Easter Rising is wickedly restaged. More subtly, Kirwan wonders what makes a leader now, his ideologues, populists and anarchists vying for position.
Ultimately little is solved and one student understandably worries, "Do you think we'll ever become like them?" The answer might be a manifesto worthy of an uprising or a youth theatre. "We'll grow old like them, but we must not become tired." PETER CRAWLEY
O’Conor, RTÉ NSO/Bamert
NCH, Dublin
Mozart– Piano Concerto No 17 Mahler– Symphony No 5
This was a return visit for Swiss conductor Matthias Bamert, who was under the tutelage of Stokowski and Szell in the late 1960s. At just over half an hour, Mozart’s 17th piano concerto is longer than the majority of its 16 predecessors, thanks not least to an expansive central andante.
With a lush string sound, colourful woodwind projection, and a leisurely pace to the middle movement, Bamert ensured this single item filled the first half.
Soloist John O’Conor’s view seemed in contrast sprier and more intimate, with a persistently delicate touch that could occasionally recede below the waves of orchestral sound. His thoughtful refinement of the piano melodies nonetheless came plentifully to the fore.
The piano’s activity gradually intensifies during the finale, and a tempo chosen to accommodate the fastest passages can give a cautious feeling at the outset.
Bamert and O’Conor’ solution was to adjust the momentum as required. The gear-change was pronounced, but it had allowed this elusive movement to get off to an unusually vigorous start.
No Mahler symphony could be considered a light undertaking, especially for an orchestra that's in the interregnum between principal conductors (not until next September does Alan Buribayev take up that position with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra.) The Symphony No 5, furthermore, places crucial demands on the principal horn. These were met with courage by acting section leader Fergus O'Carroll, who's currently standing in for the indisposed Lesley Bishop. In a reading that placed moderation before risk and solidity before spectacle, Bamert's intentions seemed those of a benevolent caretaker. ANDREW JOHNSTONE
