REVIEWS

Julian Argüelles Trio

JJ Smyth's

It doesn’t always follow that the end of a tour means that a group has not only gelled but also retains a sense of discovery in performance.

With the trio of Julian Argüelles (tenor), Michael Formanek (bass) and Tom Rainey (drums), there were no such concerns. This is an awesomely accomplished unit.

Although there were some free improvisations, mostly used as introductions to written compositions, all the thematic jumping-off points were composed by Argüelles.

In the main these were so devised that their forms offered considerable flexibility, particularly in terms of line and rhythm, to such gifted improvisers as these, while the material’s openness still provided sufficient structure for them to reference when required.

The opening Redman set the pattern. A piece which caught the peculiar grace of the late, great tenor saxophonist Dewey Redman’s lines, it produced an angular, inventive solo from Argüelles, in which he contrived to be his own man and yet evoke the subject of the tribute. But an astonishingly inventive bass solo and a wonderfully idiosyncratic and imaginative drum solo took it out into different pastures, before the trio returned to base.

Not for the first time, Rainey – with Chander Sardjoe, probably the finest drummer ever heard in this venue – impressed with his musicality. An inspired colourist and rhythmic force, he’s an extraordinary musician, yet never at the expense of the group and the soloist. It would be less than justice to the marvellous playing of Argüelles and Formanek to have it any other way.

The music they produced was simultaneously intensely cerebral and overtly emotional, a yin and yang held constantly in balance. It wasn’t simply the quick-witted invention of the group interplay, the way linear and rhythmic ideas or motifs were seized on and elaborated; it was also the very evident enjoyment and emotional sustenance they derived from the interaction.

Highlights are, as always, a matter of personal choice, but they would include Bulerias, a piece preceded by a free improv, which made exhilarating use of flamenco rhythm, and Triolity, in the second set, whose amalgam of different time signatures afforded fertile ground to a group well equipped to make the most of it. And they did.

RAY COMISKEY

Sextets in the City

Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin

Fibich– Quintet Op. 42; Dohnányi – Sextet Op. 37

This third concert of four in the Hugh Lane Gallery’s free “Sextets in the City” series offered two composers from off the beaten path in performances by a sextet made up mostly of players from the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra.

As a Czech composer, Zdenek Fibich comes a distant third after Dvorak and Smetana (or even fourth, after Janacek) in the affections of audiences both inside and outside Bohemia.

Unlike the other two, he did not prioritise the cultivation of a folk-oriented Czech sound. He chose to follow a different star and it cost him in terms of popularity.

So this was a rare and welcome opportunity to hear his late Quintet for violin, clarinet, horn, cello and piano. It’s a work in part derived from his vast collection of piano pieces, 376 Moods, Impressions and Reminiscences, a musical chronicle in intimate emotional and physical detail of a love affair with one of his pupils.

The Quintet is big, running to 40 minutes and symphonic in scale and weight, and it afforded many opportunities for a wide range of instrumental combinations, colours and textures. These included a trio with a fine horn solo from Fergus O’Carroll delicately partnered by violinist Elaine Clarke.

Although Hungarian and a great champion of the ground-breaking music of his contemporaries Bartók and Kodály, Erno Dohnányi was devoted above all to Brahms whose influence is readily heard in his music.

The Sextet Op. 37 – the group was joined by viola-player John Lynch – is deeper and artistically richer than Fibich’s Quintet, and it called on pianist Réamonn Keary to hold together what’s a lot like a symphony for six instruments, all the while dispatching a titanic piano part with polish and energy.

Both here and in the Fibich there were fine solo lines by cellist Niall O’Loughlin and also by Michael Seaver, principal clarinet with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and someone whose sensitive chamber music-making would be good to hear more often.

MICHAEL DUNGAN