Reviews

A round-up of reviews from Irish Timeswriters

LaFollette, ICO/Takács-Nagy

NCH, Dublin

Mozart - Symphony No 27. Haydn - Cello Concerto No 1. Dvorák - Sextet in A Op 48

Gábor Takács-Nagy has appeared in Ireland as leader of both the Takács String Quartet and the Takács Piano Trio. His recent short tour with the Irish Chamber Orchestra marked his debut here as a conductor, and showed him to be as inspirational a leader in front of an orchestra as he was in the context of a chamber ensemble. His programme was an unusual one, opening with one of Mozart's less well-known symphonies, following with a cut-down version of Haydn's C major Cello Concerto, and ending with a string-orchestra arrangement of Dvorák's String Sextet, Op 48.

His handling of the 17-year-old Mozart's lightweight Symphony in G, K199, was breezily elegant, with a highly appealing svelte finish to the central Andantino. The soloist in the Haydn was the young cellist, Bartholomew LaFollette, and the performance was strings-only. The parts for oboes and horns were simply omitted and although this did not result in a loss of any actual musical material, it did limit the internal contrasts Haydn had calculated for the piece. LaFollette, however, is such an easy and graceful performer, and showed such a rhythmically nimble facility of movement, it's unlikely many listeners were troubled by the change. LaFollette was as free in touching the heartstrings as he was in dashing off dazzling runs, though his tempo in the Finale sounded just too fast, moving beyond grace and wit into racing territory.

The ICO's last tour unexpectedly presented Mendelssohn's Octet as an octet pure and simple. Under Takács-Nagy the performance of the Dvorák Sextet was presented with the orchestra's full string complement. Paradoxically, however, it sounded less orchestral and more chamber music-like than the Mendelssohn. Although the violins proportionally outnumbered the other sections of the orchestra, Takács-Nagy ensured that the low- and mid-range richness of the original scoring was faithfully rendered.

The music-making had an airy openness and freedom. The colouring of the string tone was sensuous, the timing of give-and-take impeccable, the moments of high spirits utterly irresistible. Every minute detail was shaped and delivered with a sense of loving care, as if this were simply the most precious of musical offerings. Michael Dervan

Fidelio Trio

Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin

Michael Nyman - Yellow Beach. Donnacha Dennehy - bulb. Ravel - Piano Trio. Beatles/John B Hedges - I Am the Walrus

The Fidelio Trio are violinist Darragh Morgan, cellist Robin Michael, and pianist Mary Dullea, and this concert adventurously brought together music of widely disparate styles and agendas.

Not that you'd always be sure what the agenda might be. Michael Nyman's 2002 Yellow Beach is, he says, "derived from some of the harmonies of Come Unto These Yellow Sands", part of his 1991 film-score for Prospero's Books, director Peter Greenaway's take on Shakespeare's The Tempest. Maybe the agenda was the provision of a musical souvenir for fans of the film, or, Handel-like, to capitalise in new ways on previously written music. The result at any rate was one simple idea - based on repeated piano chords - looked at from two angles, one quite gentle, the other less so. It lasted about seven minutes but offered little new after 30 seconds.

Neither here nor in Donnacha Dennehy's 2006 bulb would you conclude that the agenda was to produce something you'd look forward to hearing again. But at least in the case of bulb there did seem to be a clear agenda, that of manipulating sounds from the overtone series. Dennehy cleverly does this, but with a final product that's more interesting, like observing a laboratory experiment, than enjoyable. While the violin and cello move subtly within narrow ambits, the very high and brittle motoric piano repetitions are relentless and abrasive. Dennehy calls it "an artificial vandalism of a natural phenomenon" - which pretty much sums it up.

Rubbing shoulders with these pieces was Ravel's great Piano Trio of 1914, with an agenda that reflects wholly different aesthetics from a different time. Importantly, the players responded stylishly, showing how their special commitment to the contemporary doesn't hinder them in earlier music. The string players, Morgan in particular, played with a warm string tone not called for in the Nyman and Dennehy, while Dullea's impressionist harmonies on the piano were full of both colour and detail. Michael Dungan

Loney, Dear

Whelan's, Dublin

"How many of you are going to a regular job tomorrow?" inquires Emil Svanängen. There is some grumbling from the audience. "We are with you," continues the man who, for all practical purposes, is Loney, Dear. "This is a regular job for us nowadays."

These are strange sentiments to hear from the Swedish singer-songwriter who, until his new record, Loney, Noir, financed, recorded and released his records without assistance. Now signed to Sub Pop on the strength of his deliciously breezy and pleasantly driving pop, apparently he and his impeccable band now qualify as working stiffs.

Why, then, do they look and sound so cheery? There is certainly something industrious about Svanängen, who intends to release two albums a year for The Man until 2009, but there's nothing workmanlike about his music. A cherubic presence with a mop of blonde curls and cheeks that bulge when he sings loud, Svanängen favours a deceptively straightforward approach. A typical song begins with clean acoustic guitar strums, a gossamer vocal melody and tinkling keyboard embellishment that imperceptibly gather force until the music swallows everything in its path. The effect is like being swept away by an avalanche of pillows.

And I Won't Cause Anything At All, a summery tune that conceals a bittersweet lyric, is a case in point, while Ignorant Boy, Beautiful Girl - the lyrics of which are almost entirely, "Na na na na na" - begins so softly that Whelan's becomes mushy with shushes, and ends so huge it drowns every distraction.

As the latest raider in the current invasion of Swedish pop, Svanängen may have the same airy detachment of Jens Lekman or Jenny Wilson, but his voice has a more impressive range and uncommon intensity. Unafraid to ululate over a song's crescendo, he also knows the value of simplicity. As infectiously bright and propulsive as they are, I Am John, Saturday Waits and Hard Days always leave room for a basic vocal harmony. Hard work may bring you down, Svanängen knows, but an "ooh", an "ah" and a "na na na" will always carry you away. Peter Crawley

Nightfall

Everyman Palace Theatre, Cork

A middle-class drawing-room, a missing child and an unexpected caller: the stuff of classic British and American theatre for generations, and, in the case of Nightfall by Joanna Murray-Smith, given a new (well, newish) twist by the addition of the tyranny of retrieved memory.

Despite inevitable undertones of other psychological thrillers (even the title is a reminder of Emlyn Williams with Night Must Fall while shades of Edward Albee hover like persistent ghosts), Murray-Smith achieves a credible accumulation of tension. In director Michael Cabot's production for London Classic Theatre the graduation of suspense is largely due to the skilful management of half-uttered lines, fractured gestures and half-expressed meanings by Pauline Whitaker and Jonathan Coote, as parents captured in a web of intimate despair. Catherine Harvey as the avenging visitor, with her mission of incriminating restoration, is probably just as good, but her habit of lowering her voice and turning her head away for crucial points makes it difficult to judge.

The slow evolution of the plot, in which a marriage is excavated on behalf of a daughter who does not want to be found, and in which there are few more threatening words than "I'm here to help", seems to hide the immediacy of the central dilemma, but Murray-Smith's technique eventually makes this all too real. Mary Leland

Until Sat, and then tours to Listowel on Sun