Reviews

Irish Times critics review British Sea Power at Whelans, New Year Opera Gala at the NCH, Henja Semmler and Tido Semmler at the Hugh Lane Gallery and the Goethe Institut Choir at St Ann's Church

British Sea Power
Whelans, Dublin

It begins with an eccentric combination of costumes, blue face paint and a song that cautions us against light pollution. It ends in complete anarchy, as the performers are subsumed by a heaving stage invasion, various fans and band members crowd-surf through the jam-packed venue, and more than one person dangles from the lighting rig. From whimsy to bedlam, how do you connect the dots of a British Sea Power gig?

Any band that features a hand-cranked air-raid siren is probably inviting chaos. But given that the Brighton four-piece take as much inspiration from bird-watching and BBC Radio 4's shipping forecast, it's surprising how rabid their performance becomes.

The venue, a pressure cooker of intimacy, might have something to do with it, but the abandon of the music is key. For all their studied idiosyncrasies, BSP have always known how to summon a more urgent force of crashing drums and piercing guitar riffs, a sound somewhere between tides of euphoria and looming apocalypse.

Their new album, Do You Like Rock Music?, stitches together lyrical concerns about the H5N1 strain of bird flu and the 1953 flooding of Canvey Island, while giving a song about immigration the singalong rush of a drinking anthem. Such peculiarities often made BSP seem too prickly for success, but their new material allows no quirk to impede their direct surge.

The relentless drive of Lights Out For Darker Skies and Down in the Ground are folded neatly into the giddy stomp of old favourites Remember Me and Fear of Drowning. They are pushed further towards pandemonium by the band's stage antics, which sees occasional member Phil Sumner swing down perilously from the upstairs balcony.

Although standouts Waving Flags and No Lucifer are not interrupted, the ensuing scenes become so amusingly ridiculous - albeit good-natured - it's hard to disentangle the band's musical progress from the cluttered mess of their display.
Peter Crawley

New Year Opera Gala
NCH, Dublin

In an era when the concert and cabaret scene is inundated with tenors who hunt in packs of three, it was refreshing to encounter, for a change, a trio of distinguished Cork-born sopranos whose credentials as opera divas are well established. Abetted by the RTÉCO under the baton of the ebullient Welsh conductor Philip Thomas, the three ladies provided an evening of sheer delight.

It was, as they say in sports circles, a game of two halves. Highlights of the serious part of the programme were: Mary Hegarty's scintillating delivery of coloratura show-stoppers by Gounod's Juliette, Verdi's Gilda and Rossini's Rosina; Cara O'Sullivan's performance of Leonora's Pace mio Dio from Verdi's Forza, topped by a shattering final maledizione; and a heart-warming Mira, O Norma in which O'Sullivan's Norma was partnered by Majella Cullagh's soprano Adelgisa.

In the second half, the trio exploited their not inconsiderable comic talent in pieces by Sullivan, Herbert and Johann Strauss. The concert ended with two curiosities: an arrangement of the prison trio from Gounod's Faust and Puccini's Nessun Dorma - I kid you not! These items provided object lessons in both legato singing and true unison.

Sadly, apart from Gilbert and Sullivan's three little maids, nothing heard was actually composed for three female voices. What about the sublime Rosankavilier trio or, wishful thinking in his bicentenary year, the brilliant letter scene from Michael Balfe's Falstaff? Ah, well.
John Allen

Henja Semmler, Tido Semmler
Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin

Schubert - Sonata in D D384. Webern - Four Pieces Op7. Jörg Widmann - Study. Janacek - In the mist; Violin Sonata.
Tido Semmler's biography reads largely as you'd expect for a German pianist: "Born in Berlin. First piano lessons with his mother . . . Julius-Stern Konservatorium Berlin," etc. But if you're only skimming, you might miss what you'd least expect to read: "Since 2004, climate modeller at Met Éireann".

The Dublin-based Semmler, who took a PhD in meteorology in 2002, has been a part-time student at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, where he completed a recital artist diploma course last June. Although he couldn't quite establish momentum and continuity amidst the abrupt changes and fragmentary nature of Janacek's In the Mist - his lone solo of the concert - his playing was thoughtful and intense.

He fared better in partnership with his sister, violinist Henja Semmler. It was her grace and clarity in Schubert's short D major Sonata and her robust, impassioned engagement with the Sonata by Janacek that gave life to this recital. In a spoken introduction to Webern's highly concentrated Four Pieces Opus 7 of 1910, she made an enthusiastic case for its atonal (though pre-12-tone) music. She might not have bothered, so persuasive was the duo's poised, crystalline account, in which a single, isolated note on the violin or a perfectly weighted chord on the piano could captivate.

It was a performance that the audience clearly appreciated, although they were even more taken with the Étude IV for unaccompanied violin composed by the Bavarian Jörg Widmann. It ranged from a pizzicato dialogue between the right and left hands to rapid-fire exchanges between bowing and plucking, with harmonics, microtones and a mad, concluding climax. She delivered all with both technical ease and considerable fire.
Michael Dungan

Goethe Institut Choir, OSC/Wolff
St Ann's Church, Dublin

Bach - Cantatas 78, 17, 138, 27
The orchestra of St Cecilia's decade-long survey of Bach's 200-plus church cantatas entered its eighth annual season last Sunday. The marathon series continues to attract capacity audiences.

First up this year were the Goethe Institut Choir under the baton of Christoph Wolff - the world's leading authority on Bach. This was the third occasion that the series has secured one of Prof Wolff's rare conducting appearances, and it was the smoothest-running so far.

The selection of four cantatas - all composed for the Lutheran calendar's 14th, 15th and 16th Sundays after Trinity - brought the inevitable mixture of delight and reassurance.

Tenor Robin Tritschler dispatched his generous allotments with customary focus and fluency.

Soprano Lynda Lee, although backed by some unpleasantly out-of-tune playing, brought to her one solo aria a fitting sweetness and steadfastness. Bass Nigel Williams was at a richly pensive best in three choice and vividly symbolic arias, while alto Alison Browner made every syllable sparkle.

Thanks to the assiduous coaching of John Dexter, the Goethe Institut Choir emerged as victors over some tough musical exactions, particularly the opening chorus of cantata 17.
Andrew Johnstone