Reviews

A look at what is happening in the world of the arts and culture.

Brad Mehldau Trio

Vicar Street, Dublin

The return of pianist Brad Mehldau to Vicar Street on Sunday - no other front-rank American jazzman has been here more often in the past dozen years - saw the venue hoist standing-room-only notices long before the event. And he rewarded the buzz of anticipation with a fine concert, ultimately greeted with a standing ovation.

Perhaps it was the change in the line-up of his longstanding trio that, at least in part, caused the excitement. His drummer of the past decade, Jorge Rossy, had departed some months ago to his native Barcelona, to be replaced by American Jeff Ballard. Whatever the reasons, Mehldau's popularity endures, and he didn't disappoint.

Some of the material - Granada, Knives Out, Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover, She's Leaving Home - comes from the new trio's first CD, Day Is Done. But Mehldau also found time to introduce three fresh, as yet untitled, originals, presumably by himself, as well as a contemporary pop song (Black Hole Sun), an old standard (The Very Thought Of You) and a venerable jazz original by saxophonist Jimmy Heath (CTA).

What's interesting is the impact Ballard has had on the group. He's more flexible and stylistically diverse than Rossy and, a busier drummer, he's also more inclined to dialogue with Mehldau. This hasn't altered the trio's approach completely, but it has given the music a harder edge and pushed Mehldau more, with bassist Larry Grenadier left more in a fulcrum role, the centre around which piano and drums cavort.

Sometimes this would happen over a simple repeated bass figure; both piano and drum solos, as well as their dialogue, followed this scheme on Black Hole Sun and on one of the untitled pieces. But the flexibility has also given Mehldau more license to develop his solos, either by playing around with single motifs or by launching into long linear explorations of virtuosity and sustained imagination. Using the latter approach, his solo on the standard became a kind of fantasia, increasingly effective the further it evolved from its source material.

Paradoxically, the sheer rhythmic and linear flexibility this trio now commands was thrown into sharp relief by the straight-ahead 4/4 treatment of CTA, which at times sounded so old-fashioned as to be slightly parodic. It was, presumably, unintentional, but it did show the contemporary range this trio now treats as its modus operandi with its other material, even on ballads.

Amid the intensity of such as Knives Out and Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover there was time for some lyrical ballad-playing on She's Leaving Home and Black Hole Sun, as well as on an untitled piece. But, overall, it was clear that the introduction of Ballard has tilted the balance of this fine trio and given it a fresh impetus.

Ray Comiskey

Bashmet, RTÉ NSO/Buribayev

NCH, Dublin

Berlioz - Harold in Italy. Tchaikovsky - Manfred Symphony.

It was a commission from the great Paganini, for a concerto to show off his Stradivarius viola, that led to Berlioz's symphony, Harold in Italy.

Paganini, however, exited early on. On seeing an early draft he complained that the viola was not being given enough to do, insisting, the composer reported, that "I must be playing the whole time".

But, even without Paganini, Berlioz persisted with his symphony, based on happy memories of Italy, and added a layer of romantic association by drawing in Byron's Childe Harold. The fair-minded Paganini eventually gave the completed work his wholehearted approval when he heard it in 1838, four years after its premiere.

There's a direct Berlioz connection with Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony of 1885. It was Berlioz to whom composer Mily Balakirev proposed a scenario for a symphony based on Byron's Manfred, during Berlioz's last visit to Russia in 1867. And, still having had no takers, he thrust the idea repeatedly on Tchaikovsky, who eventually responded with a work which mixes the lugubrious and the fairy-light with broad, indulgent strokes.

Neither work is among its composer's most popular. The Berlioz, for all its atmosphere and special colouring, falls uncomfortably between the two stools of concerto and symphony. And the scene-painting of the Tchaikovsky can seem repetitively over-stretched at a length of around 50 minutes.

The performance of the Berlioz was an attempt to view the work as the concerto Paganini originally wanted, with soloist Yuri Bashmet tending to hog the limelight, as well he might given the gorgeously rich tone and easy projection which are at his command. It's not that he never played with sensitive softness, just that the viola line was mostly a thing apart, to be admired for its own sake, rather than, as Berlioz intended, a more integrated part of the orchestral presentation.

The Kazakh conductor Alan Buribayev, making his Dublin debut, took a great delight in the vivid colouring of both works, sometimes in a manner that seemed a little too raw, but always purposefully and with a strong feeling of musical vitality. His highly focused approach seemed to be as thoroughly appreciated by the players as by the enthusiastic audience.

Michael Dervan

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

The Village, Dublin

Brooklyn's Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (CYHSY), along with the ubiquitous Arctic Monkeys, are the first children of the long-forecast internet music revolution. Despite not having a record label, rave reviews from music blogs and electronic word of mouth helped them sell 25,000 copies of their self-released debut album from their living room.

Indeed, their reputation exploded so fast that this concert was moved from the more intimate Crawdaddy and still sold out before their self-titled album was even released here. With that sort of hype, the pressure is on CYHSY to prove they are more than just the internet-appointed band of the moment. Frontman Alec Ounsworth has been getting plenty of David Byrne comparisons, and on record there is more than a hint of Talking Heads-style eccentricity. In concert, though, his vocals are both powerful and affected, occasionally suggesting Neil Young doing a South Park impersonation.

His stage persona is basically his vocal style made flesh, all angular limbs and jerky movements - when his vocal cords quiver, so do his knees. The rest of the band - brothers Lee and Tyler Sargent, drummer Sean Greenhalgh and bouncing keyboardist Robbie Guertin - are energetic without ever threatening to eclipse Ounsworth.

Of course, bands don't get this popular this quickly without good tunes, and CYHSY have no shortage of those. One of the strongest songs on the album, The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth, got an early outing, and was rapturously received, even if singing along with Ounsworth isn't the easiest proposition. Tracks from the 40-minute album were filled out by some new songs, and a live favourite that mysteriously failed to make the album, Satan Said Dance. The sound, though, was often muddy, particularly for songs that normally bounce, such as Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood and In This Home on Ice.

The band finished the relatively short set with a cover of Neil Young's Helpless, putting their own inimitable twist on the song. Ounsworth and company now face the task of outlasting the short attention span of the internet hype machine and proving their greatness. On this evidence, that shouldn't be too difficult.

Davin O'Dwyer

RTÉ Vanbrugh String Quartet

National Gallery, Dublin

Mozart - Quartet in F K590. Shostakovich - Quartet No 8. Beethoven - Quartet in F Op 135.

The final string quartets composed by Mozart and Beethoven both featured in Sunday's afternoon concert by the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet in the Shaw Room at the National Gallery.

In June 1790, when he completed his Quartet in F K590, Mozart was not to know that within 18 months he would be dead and that he would not return to the genre. So there is no hint of valediction in the piece, which has, in fact, a very positive, often sparkling spirit.

This was something that came across well in the Vanbrugh's lively performance, as did Christopher Marwood's prominent cello solos: the work was one of a projected set of six for the enthusiastic amateur cellist, King Friederich Wilhelm II of Prussia.

Nor is there any suggestion of farewell in Beethoven's Op 135, not only his final quartet but the last completed work of his entire illustrious output. Though both intricate and innovative in its design, it is a genial work, especially in the context of the sometimes intimidating intensity to be encountered in the late quartets. Here again the Vanbrugh succeeded in tapping into the music's warm disposition.

Shostakovich's Quartet No 8 was not entirely out of place programmed between these two final statements. It, too, could have proven a last essay since he was suicidal when he wrote it in 1960. Even though his nemesis, Stalin, had been dead for some years, Shostakovich remained conflicted by the competing demands of artistic independence and survival amid political danger.

So the Eighth Quartet is as personal a statement as are the Mozart and Beethoven, filled with numerous references to the sad, four-note motif based on letters from his name. And it was in this tense, sometimes despairing music that the Vanbrugh gave their best performance. Whereas the other works had featured all the right character but the occasional (and surprising) skid, here the playing was consistently cleaner and stronger as well as edgey and moving.

Michael Dungan