Reviews

Irish Times writers give their verdict

RTÉ NSO/Markson NCH, Dublin

Michael Dervan

Brahms/Benzi - Variations on a theme by Robert Schumann. Brahms - Piano Concerto No 2. Schumann - Symphony No 4.

The first half of the final concert of the RTÉ NSO's Schumannfest was given over, entirely appropriately, to music by Brahms, a composer whose early career was advanced by the enthusiastic advocacy of Schumann.

Roberto Benzi's orchestration of Brahms's first piano duet, the Variations on a theme by Robert Schumann, Op 23, sounded on Friday to be a dull bit of work. The orchestration seemed to fall lamely between two stools.

It neither successfully represented the distinctively sonorous world of the piano duet in orchestral terms, nor created a freshness of orchestral colour to allow the music to be heard in new ways.

If this opening work was a damp squib, the piece that followed it, once teasingly referred to by Brahms as "a tiny, tiny piano concerto with a tiny, tiny wisp of a scherzo" was anything but.

That piece, Brahms's Second, is, of course, a titan among concertos. It makes demands that are unique in the 19th century, both in terms of its moment by moment demands (Alfred Brendel has referred to its "unsurpassable pianistic perversions"), as well as the stamina that is required to survive a work that gives the soloist but little respite.

Friday's soloist, Barry Douglas, was on top form, never afraid to reveal how much Brahms forces the pianist to swim against the tide, but also always finding the gritty determination to achieve mastery in the most demanding of situations.

Douglas provided a sense of surging power that seemed to act as an inspiration to conductor Gerhard Markson and his players, who found a searing intensity of expression - especially in the strings - that matched the flights of the soloist. The more delicately touching intimacy of the opening of the slow movement was also well caught, with the cello solo being beautifully sung by Eckart Schwarz-Schulz.

Schumann's Fourth Symphony is his most compact, and has long retained a popularity with audiences. Markson handled it with the persuasive thrusting drive which has been the hallmark of his approach in this Schumannfest.

Ballet Fireworks, Civic Theatre, Tallaght

Michael Seaver

After the Arts Council cut funding in 2003 Ballet Ireland are back on the road with Ballet Fireworks 2. The formula is the same as before: short varied ballet sketches from solos to ensembles of 12 with choreography by company director Gunther Falusy and other guests, including long-serving company dancer Stephen Brennan. And judging by the sizable crowd present on Saturday night, this is obviously a format that attracts.

Jessica Edgley has danced with the company for a couple of years and fared best with works by experienced choreographers Mattlyn Gavers and Ray Barra. Barra's Adam and Eve is a new work with dancers in white bathed in blue light.

Simple and elegant, it is stripped of anything superfluous like the extract from Les Sylphides, in which Gavers underplays the type of flittering that sometimes taints the work.

Marcis Lesins is better known as a dancer than choreographer and his Nosferatu, developed from an interesting premise and dramatic scenography, couldn't quite match the drama in Saint-Saen's Danse Macabre.

School for Lovers, by Stephen Brennan, stood out in its clarity, drama and sense of fun. Condensing Mozart's opera Cosi Fan Tutti into about 10 minutes, the tale of disguise and unfaithfulness had a small cast of six, with Brennan himself taking the role of Don Alfonso.

The action was framed by changing cue cards titling the different scenes like a silent movie and clear gestures with a tight dramatic rhythm kept the action flowing. The Ballet Fireworks model has allowed Ballet Ireland attract audiences, but developing and producing more substantial repertoire with talents such as Brennan's will help consolidate the company in times of funding uncertainties.

Ó Lionáird, Gavin Bryars Ensemble, Christ Church, Dublin

Michael Dervan

The Dublin debut by the Gavin Bryars Ensemble at Christ Church Cathedral on Saturday turned out to be a very long evening. With a late get-in for the audience and an opening set by the not quite on form sounding sean nós singer, Iarla Ó Lionáird, it was around an hour after the advertised starting time before Bryars's own music was heard.

The evening's repertoire steered well clear of the pieces for which Bryars is most famous - The Sinking of the Titanic and Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet - and concentrated instead on work from the last 10 years or so.

Bryars's music is largely slow in pace, calm in its rhythmic movement, and moderate in volume.

Time is heavy in his music, and the mood is minor key even when the harmony is major. The moments of greatest agitation - flurries of accompanimental arpeggios, like froth on a slow-moving wave - were unlikely to set anyone's pulse racing.

The music often moves as in a slow drift, in which occasional unexpected side-steps in the harmony provide primary changes of vista, and the unusual instrumental colourings (two solo voices, with two violas, cello, double bass, clarinet, guitar and piano) are as nourishing as the strictly delimited and sometimes banal melodic and harmonic movement.

There can have been but few listeners at Christ Church for whom enjoyment was not constrained by the fact that for an evening which included only two purely instrumental pieces, no texts were provided for the sung items. The works which communicated most were the four Laudas, and The North Shore.

The Laudas were graced by the gorgeous voice of Norwegian soprano Anna Maria Friman and the pleasing tenor of John Potter. The North Shore, for viola and ensemble, was placed second in the programme, and thereby became the piece which laid out the pattern for much that was to follow.

The Eight Irish Madrigals, which were receiving their first performances, are settings for one and two voices with strings of Petrarch sonnets as translated by Synge. There were moments here when the writing threatened to shift into Bach cantata territory, and also some moments which stood out for a hint of drama, as well for suggestions of more conventionally expressive melodic treatment. It seemed a pity that these new pieces came so late in a long evening.

Sonia Sabri Samuel Beckett Centre, Dublin

Michael Seaver

The explosion of interest in world music hasn't quite been mirrored in the dance world, but of all non-Western forms, the North Indian tradition of Kathak dance has found an eager audience in Europe.

Those who were wooed by Akram Khan's blend of contemporary dance and Kathak at the 2002 festival and were hoping for something similar would have been disappointed that Sonia Sabri chose her mixed programme of dances for Dublin, rather than Drishti, her new work which incorporates Kathak with digital motion sensing.

The ability to separate slowing flowing arms from rapid percussive feet, while her face gently mimes an ongoing story is effortless, and she charmed the audience throughout.

A homage to the performing space, musicians, audience and Krishna led way to Dagar Chalat, an expressive dance that tells of one episode between Radha and Krishna.

In introducing the story Sabri shows the movement motifs that illustrate the narrative, and so the tale of how dressing Krishna as a woman didn't diminish his divinity was clear to all.

Az Yaar Juda had a storyline that was clearly outlined, but in many ways the basic vocabulary and moods, which Sabri performs with clarity, contain a universality that allows different interpretations to very clear emotional expressions. Which all made the second half a bit tedious. Devoted to pure dance, she chose a 16-count phrase to improvise on with tabla player Sarvar Sabri, but was continually drawn back to the microphone to explain the various metrical sub-divisions that she dancing.