Peter Sweeney chose a very varied programme for his recital at St Michael's, Dun Laoghaire last night, the penultimate instalment in the current series. Most of the music was from the 17th and 18th centuries, some by little-known figures (D'Agincour and Homilius), some by composers whose work features altogether more regularly in organ programmes, Muffat, Walther, Scheidt, Froberger, Frescobaldi and Buxtehude. And in the middle he placed a single work from a contemporary pen, the sonata which the Belfast composer Philip Hammond completed in 1983.
Sweeney is a colourful and flamboyant player, the sort of musician whose high spirits and sheer elan can turn the simplest of runs or embellishments into an attention-grabbing flourish. In his hands, the Hammond Sonata is a most effective concert piece conceived in the full glory of a retrospective Francophile manner.
At various other points in the evening, too, there were flashes of brilliance that struck the ear with particular point or potency. It was in the connectedness of the whole - even in the various sets of variations that he chose - that Sweeney seemed on this occasion less successful. The problems lay primarily in his fondness for stop-go rubato - hesitations dallying just that bit too long, occasioning rushes that then sounded over-impetuous. These cyclic windings up and down created for me an unevenness of pulse that, while challenging and even exciting, could be as disorienting as a switchback ride.
