Reviews

Siobhán Long reviews Patty Griffin at Whelan's and Andrew Johnstone reviews the latest concert in RTÉ's Horizons series

Patty Griffin at Whelan's, Dublin

Big Apple nerviness crossed with a pair of vocal cords straight out of the Grand Old Opry's honky-tonk archives, Amy Allison (daughter of Mose) tiptoed so tentatively through her quirky support set that she had everyone hanging on her every uneasy pronouncement. Armed with anthems that would do a slacker generation proud ("All that waste of time/Is what makes you sublime" from Pretty Things To Buy) and a knapsack full of straight-up alt country (The Whiskey Makes You Sweeter), Allison's high-end vocals proved the perfect foil for the only cover in her set, Morrissey's exquisitely-framed Every Day Is Like Sunday, and marked her out as a sad girl with a healthy sense of the absurd.

Patty Griffin returned to Dublin for the third time in nine months, and it took her less than three minutes to make the entire room all her own. Griffin's hangdog demeanour and sensual authority were a tasty backdrop to what is a magnificent repertoire that swings from alt country to blues to hard rockin' and right back to acoustic love songs with barely a blip on the cardiograph monitor.

She's kept company with the best of them, including Emmylou, Gillian Welch and Buddy Miller, and Griffin's pedigree shines through her songwriting. From the David Lynchian middle America landscapes of Makin' Pies to the naked flame that is Icicles and the chafing edginess of the politically-charged Bad News, Griffin burrows deep beneath the skin of every song to reach places and finger sensations that few other songwriters ever visit.

Accompanied by her superb guitarist, Doug Lancio, Griffin swung from songbird to Staples sister in a hummingbird wing flap.

Her songwriting wears its sophistication lightly, never forcing, always luring the listener in to its veiled treasures. Griffin's reputation has been built on a solid slow-burner approach to her music and this was a chance to catch that divine talent in its prime. Even if on occasion, her rockier songs melded into one, there were so many standouts hovering at both ends of the parabola, from country blues to throaty gospel, that she left her audience both sated and ravenous for a further infusion. Always a good way to exit stage left. Siobhán Long

Lipkind, RTÉ NSO/Houlihan at NCH, Dublin

Andrew Hamilton - MAP. Kevin Volans - Cello Concerto. Stravinsky - Quatre Études (exc). Kevin Volans - Strip-weave

It's natural that the concerts in RTÉ's Horizons series, which give Irish composers the opportunity to present selections of their own and others' works, should typically include items of an experimental nature. This week, however, the music chosen by Kevin Volans gave a strong sense of having moved beyond mere experimentation.

To be sure, his Strip-weave and Andrew Hamilton's MAP are examples of post-modern concept art - pieces that take an extra-musical idea as a starting point. But the imagination, technique and self-criticism that then take over yield results that are a far cry from the routine, cut-and-paste minimalist essay.

Volans, whose music is strongly indebted to field-work in Africa, combines mantra-like native rhythms with the sometimes random effect of certain native fabrics. Hamilton requires the orchestra players to whistle an innocuous scrap of melody that's eventually absorbed by an increasingly aggressive accompaniment.

Both pieces make extensive use of repetition and restricted use of chromaticism. They are neither overtly challenging nor overtly flattering. Yet each engages with itself in such a way that it's impossible not to be engaged by it.

Under a completely dependable Robert Houlihan, the NSO matched the sureness and freshness of the music with sure, fresh execution.

It's a measure of Volans's success that his Cello Concerto originally composed in 1997 has been so enthusiastically taken up by a soloist of the calibre of Gavriel Lipkind. This was the first performance of a revised version which, at Lipkind's request, is even more relentless and uncompromising.

If the score doesn't always give the orchestra interesting things to do, the same cannot be said of the jaw-dropping cello part. Lipkind played it from memory, and with the unbridled panache of a rock artist. - Andrew Johnstone