Irish Times writers review, Ragús, Neil Diamond, the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, Decky Does a Bronco and Catherine McCague, Mary McCague (pianos), National Youth Orchestra/Gearóid Grant.
Ragús
Olympia Theatre, Dublin
Rosita Boland
The show, which advertises itself as "Irish music, song and dance from the Aran Islands" is now in its fifth year, and running until the end of August. Showcasing a country's music and culture for a tourist market is a perfectly acceptable practice: what's not is the shameless passing off of that show as anything other than a kind of variety gala performance. Of the 11 musicians and dancers with biographical notes in the programme, not one of them are described as being from Aran. Neither is there anything in the programme of reels, jigs and ballads that locates them specifically on Aran, few of which are even introduced to the audience beyond a vague offering along the lines of "this tune is from Connemara".
Accordionist and vocalist Fergal O'Murchú, fiddler Maurice Lennon, bodhrán-player Brian Garvan, piper Gary Roche, guitarist Timmy Murray and keyboard player Seamus Brett are all fine musicians. Lead dancers Deirdra Kiely, Donnacha Howard, and Michael Donegan, are all energetic and stylish performers, and they possess real stage presence. The troupe of female dancers kick high and smile hard through the jigs and reels. The standard of performance is high, it's the delivery that's so excruciating, and all the worse for being unnecessarily so.
The audience are tutored in spontaneity: presenter O'Murchú takes us through learning to yell the loud "hup" of appreciation you hear at sessions, making everyone hup to the rafters until you just know these tourists will go away on their travels round Ireland and start hupping the moment they hear a fiddle being tuned, and then wonder why people stare at them. We are also told to hold the hand of the person sitting next to us - whether we know them or not - while O'Murchu sings a séan nós song (the only song in Irish all night), holding hands when singing is what séan nós singers do, he says. Well yes, they do, but they don't expect everyone listening to them to do the same. Everything was contrived, from the way the show advertises itself as being from the Aran Islands, to the speaker boxes tricked out in fishing net to resemble lobster pots.
By the end of the show, myself and the Irish members of my party were crawling under our seats in embarrasment at this fast-food approach to our traditional music culture. But the tourists absolutely loved it, many of them cheering on their feet by the end. The American couple from North Carolina in the nearby seats said the performace had brought tears to their eyes. "Magicial", the woman said, heading straight off to buy the CD.
Neil Diamond
Lansdowne Road, Dublin
Tony Clayton-Lea
With a career that stretches across four decades, it's not really surprising that peppered across Neil Diamond's weekend concerts at Lansdowne Road - where he played to an estimated 65,000 over two nights - were some genuinely good pop songs. No one can get away with it for that long without pulling some plums out of the basket, and with an unadorned stage production, a 16-piece ensemble band, a sparkly shirt and a largely "Best Of"set, the 61-year-old hitmaker certainly kept the crowd on their feet and on his side.
It's a pity, then, that the very good material (including I Am I Said, Play Me, September Morn, Shilo, Soolaimon, Yes I Will and several more) was outweighed by the more obvious choices, the songs that for some - and through no fault of his own, it would seem - undermine his status as one of the Top 20 most successful popular artists in the USA.
The wedding band and karaoke favourites kept on coming: Sweet Caroline, Forever In Blue Jeans, Song Sung Blue, You Don't Bring Me Flowers, songs where clammy hands were touching hands, reaching out, touching me, touching you. Songs that, needless to say, were by far the most well received. As if to drive the point home, and to rankle those of a sensitive nature (not many, I'll warrant), Diamond let rip on Sweet Caroline three times, making Lansdowne, for 10 minutes or so, the biggest cabaret/karaoke bar in Ireland.
Diamond himself comes across as a sincere, honest type, amiably humorous, blending show stopping mulch with heartfelt, reflective, inherently melodic material, in the way that only a songwriter of his age and era can.
Quality control is subjective, and selfless performances are the name of the game, yet there were times when you wished he would cut out the dross in the name of mass entertainment. He's a Brooklyn boy, after all - wouldn't it be a good idea if he started playing the clubs again?
West Cork Chamber Music Festival
Michael Dervan
Wednesday is the day when the West Cork Chamber Music Festival catches its breath, reducing the number of concerts and making a move to St Brendan's Church, in the centre of Bantry.
Having access to a larger stage than is possible in Bantry House, the festival's director, Francis Humphrys, doesn't readily resist the temptation to programme accordingly. This year the unusual offering was a version of Brahms's Serenade in D scored for nine players instead of orchestra, an attempted reconstruction of the form in which the work began life, but which, sadly, has not survived - Brahms was always careful to hide his tracks and destroy things he would rather not be remembered by.
The serenade, the composer's first orchestral work, now languishes unjustly in the shadow of the symphonies. It's spacious and relaxed, displaying a sort of wise geniality, as Brahms deals with a form more associated with the 18th century than the 19th. The nonet version, as speculatively "restored" by Jorge Rotter, is at its best in the opening movements, and later in the Minuet (effectively unchanged) and the Scherzo.
Both the Adagio and the closing Rondo become attenuated through the reduction in sonority. The performance, led by Catherine Leonard, was strongly projected, at times, indeed, to the point where the players seemed a shade too anxious to compensate for the lack of orchestral weight.
The second half of the concert was devoted to Schubert's Winterreise, given by the German tenor Marcus Ullmann with pianist Joanna MacGregor. Ullmann's is a light tenor voice, which carried well over the sometimes impetuously forward playing of his keyboard partner. His narrative had an artless simplicity, as if the singing of this most heart-rending of song-cycles were second-nature to him. It takes real strength of character, and untold vocal resources, for a singer to render the artistry behind such an undertaking seem so transparent, to deliver Schubert's darkest thoughts so effectively as a chillingly neutral messenger.
St Brendan's was also the venue for a persuasive late night performance of Bach's Musical Offering, given by Wilbert Hazelzet (flute), Maya Homburger and Clare Duff (violins), Sarah Cunningham (bass viol) and Malcolm Proud (harpsichord). The day opened with a Coffee Concert at Bantry House, in which Catherine Leonard, James Boyd and Natalie Clein offered Beethoven's String Trio in D, Op. 9 No. 2, and the Serenade by Dohnányi. Their playing was soloistic in a manner that was fatiguingly emphatic - the heavy delivery of a political speech, as it were, brought to matters which needed only the dynamic of friendly conversation.
Decky Does a Bronco
Draíocht at Farmleigh
Susan Conley
It is Decky, the one who can't manage to bronco (swing and then jump off mid-flight, with enough force to make the swing flip over the top of the bar), who is the usual butt of teasing, and whose determination to show his friends that he's not a complete fool, results in the tragedy of the play. Paul Rattray, Iain Pearson, Muz Murray, Tommy Mullins, Iain Mossman and Brian Ferguson, as directed by Janie Abbott for Scotland's Grid Iron Theatre Company, effortlessly manage the emotional acrobatics, as well as the physical ones, and all manage the difficult feat of convincingly playing children. Childhood is often something that it takes the rest of your life to get over, and Grid Iron have created a realistic, funny, moving, and, yes, poignant piece of theatre that makes revisiting some universally painful themes entertaining and illuminating.
Catherine McCague, Mary McCague (pianos), National Youth Orchestra/Gearóid Grant
National Concert Hall, Dublin
Douglas Sealy
Festive Overture, Op. 96 Shostakovich
The Carnival of the AnimalsSaint-Saens
Symphony No. 1, Op. 39 in E minorSibelius
Shotakovich's Festive Overture is a brash piece and doesn't demand subtle treatment; it provided a suitably forceful opening for the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland's under 18s concert in the NCH last Wednesday. The playing was crisp and the ensemble neat.
The 14 vignettes that make up Saint-Saens's Carnival of the Animals were performed with an alert attention to detail and a keen appreciation of their variety- from the melancholy of the Tortoise, to the unusual joviality of the Fossils. The piano parts were played by the McCague sisters, whose sensitive playing contributed largely to the total effect. The heavy tread of Elephants, for double bass solo, and the yearning of the Swan, for cello solo, complemented each other in the happiest way.
It was, however, in Sibelius that the band really showed its mettle. The highly colourful score, the occasionally grandiose orchestration, the romantic picturesqueness, the surging climaxes, all were a challenge to which the players rose with enthusiasm. Gearóid Grant kept the music moving and kept a proper balance between the different sections of the orchestra; he confidently built an imposing structure, while giving full value to the quieter lyrical episodes.
It is stirring music and received a stirring performance.
