Irish Times writers review John O'Connor at the NCH in Dublin and Green Day at the Point Theatre in Dublin.
John O'Conor (piano)
NCH, Dublin
Michael Dervan
Beethoven - Sonata in A flat Op 26. Sonatas Op 27. Sonata in D Op 28 (Pastoral)
John O'Conor's chronological survey of Beethoven's complete piano sonatas, which reached its fourth instalment at the National Concert Hall on Monday, has now firmly turned the corner into the 19th century. The most famous of the four sonatas on offer was the Moonlight, the second of the two sonatas quasi una fantasia of Op. 27. The first, in E flat, stretches the boundaries of the conventional sonata even further than the Moonlight, though there's nothing to catch the imagination with the intensity of the mournful reflection which opens the Moonlight or the stormy whirlwind which closes it.
The Sonata in A flat, Op. 26, eschews convention by opening with a set of variations and including a funeral march, sulla morte d'un Eroe, though the hero remains unidentified. This march is the only movement from his piano sonatas that Beethoven arranged for orchestra, and it was performed at his funeral.
The Sonata in D, Op. 28, is known as the Pastoral, a nickname first applied on an early publication in London -the Moonlight seems to have acquired its nickname after Beethoven's death, from Ludwig Rellstab's image of "a boat visiting the wild places on Lake Lucerne by moonlight". The Pastoral is a sonata without a true slow movement, and it has many foretastes of the repetitive rumination that Beethoven was to explore in his Pastoral Symphony.
John O'Conor's performances were of a style which suggested the music was being allowed to speak for itself. He set tempos that flowed - and sometimes flew -with a sense of ease. His playing made his musicianship largely unobtrusive. In short, his Beethoven was a regular kind of guy, someone who had his darker moments, but who was well-balanced underneath it all. He may have raised his voice, but he combed his hair and kept his room tidy. He was reasonable rather than revolutionary. And still, as both O'Conor's clear-voiced playing and the audience's response made plain, he wrote music to stir the depths of a 21st-century listener.
Green Day
Point Theatre, Dublin
Kevin Courtney
Green Day have been together for 15 years now, but instead of getting older and wrinklier, the punky LA trio appear to have reversed the ageing process. There they are, bouncing up and down on stage, and I swear they must be all of 14 years old. I know rock stars are supposed to be childish and immature, but this is ridiculous.
Turns out the rock 'n' roll kids on stage are not actually Billy Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool, but three lucky fans who have been plucked from the audience and given a quick lesson in live performance.
The secret to Green Day's long-standing appeal is that their young fans feel they can bash out such spunky tunes as Basket Case, Longview, Geek Stink Breath, Minority, King for a Day and Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) without too much skill. The band's new album, American Idiot, contains much the same simple material, but there's seething outrage lurking beneath the stock riffs of the title track, and a discernible maturing in Jesus of Suburbia, Boulevard of Broken Dreams and Wake Me Up When September Ends. Cartoon rock? Yes, but now it's more South Park than Scooby-Doo.
