Reviews

Today’s reviews include Gillian Welch at Vicar St and Rónán Murray’s performance in St Michael's, Dún Laoghaire.

Gillian Welch/Vicar Street, Dublin: It was one hell of a wait, but it was worth it. Gillian Welch promised us a visit two years ago, then cancelled in the aftermath of September 11th. At least she had the decency to apologise for the lengthy absence to the gathered faithful, whose early arrival at the venue revealed a collective anxious anticipation. And how bountiful was the reward, because this was not just a gig of the year but one that relegated scores of others over the past five to the ha'penny place.

California-born but Tennessee- minded, Welch trades in tales of Dust Bowl Depression-era Americana that on paper would have an audience reaching for Prozac. But somehow that coal-rich voice paired with her partner David Rawlings's spectacular excursions on acoustic guitar raise the music to a sacred place where the air is thin and where few artists survive, bar Welch, Guy Clark, Johnny Cash and maybe, just maybe, Townes Van Zandt.

It was a marathon set that stretched its welcoming arms around early gems such as the Baptist-inspired By The Mark and the grievously angelic Annabelle from 1996's Revival, right through the murderous ballad Caleb Meyer and 2001's Revelator and Elvis Presley Blues. Welch's effortless delivery (on vocals and guitar) was a lesson in understatement, her graceful lines countered by Rawlings's laboured toiling on guitar and harmonies. Still, it was toil that yielded a rich harvest, with chord pickings that bore a closer resemblance to calculus than to raw country.

Welch's latest album, Soul Journey, was the night's biggest winner, its naked arrangements and stark landscape animated by Welch and Rawlings's three-dimensional delivery. From the opener, the glorious Look At Miss Ohio, Welch inhabited every nook and cranny of that songbook as if she'd brought her entire world to visit. Titles that had struggled to break loose of the shackles of the recording studio soared high and wide, unabashedly insinuating themselves into our subconscious to be hummed and strummed in the shadows for days to come. And so the lumbering I Had A Real Good Mother And Father, No One Knows My Name and One Little Song all made perfect sense.

A sublime reading of Neil Young's Albuquerque was Welch's choice to bookend an unforgettable night. And as for that dress and those boots, if only the rest of us had such sartorial confidence.

Siobhán Long

Rónán Murray/St Michael's, Dún Laoghaire:  Prelude and Fugue in E minor BWV548 (Wedge), Trio in D minor BWV583 - Bach. Suite du Premier Ton - Clérambault. Alleluyas - Simon Preston. Sonata No 2 in C minor - Mendelssohn

RónáMurray is a musician determined to do his own thing, and with gusto. He is the organist of St Joseph's Church, Glasthule, and here his performance of Suite Du Premier Ton by Bach's great contemporary Louis-Nicolas Clérambault typified the strengths and limitations of the recital.

Those aspects of French baroque organ composition that most players find intimidating - its elaborate ornamentation, its conceptual precision and specific registration - held no terrors for Murray. There was something winning about his panache, his concentration on the "emotional extremes and colour" described in his chatty spoken introduction. This was a go-for-it performance, and despite its lack of concern with orthodoxy, some splashy detail and a loose control of metre, it made you listen.

One could predict this musician's determination to use the organ's Cymbelstern stop, with its bells and revolving shiny star. True to form, his choice was unorthodox, for this epitome of the baroque mechanical toy tinkled away at the end of a recent composition, Simon Preston's Alleluyas.

Dash and panache have their limitations. Bach's Prelude and Fugue in E minor BWV548 (Wedge) had little sense of large-scale design and a persistent impression that this performance owed more to romantic feeling than to stylistic awareness.

The most complete performances of the evening came in Mendelssohn's Sonata No 2 in C minor and in the encore. The latter was a gift to a friend, a quasi-improvised set of variations on Happy Birthday To You. As a manifestation of natural ability it was impressive, and in its feisty panache and unabashed use of the corny added-sixth chord at the end it was the authentic, irrepressible voice of Murray.

Martin Adams