Jealous Pursuit for viola and piano - Rhona Clarke
Piano Quartet No 2 in G minor - Faure
Piano Sonata Op. 14 No. 2 in G - Beethoven
Curve with Plateaux for solo cello - Jonathan Harvey
Piano Quartet No 1, Undercurrent - Rhona Clarke
In Monday night's concert in the Composers' Choice at the NCH John Field Room, the works selected by Rhona Clarke were distinguished by clear formal outlines, allied in the case of Faure's Piano Quartet No 2 to an extraordinary opulence of both emotion and harmony.
The Hibernia String Trio with Finghin Collins (piano) relished the opportunity for voluptuousness, saved by their energetic interpretation from submerging in a syrupy sea.
They also played Rhona Clarke's Piano Quartet, newly-commissioned by the NCH.
This one-movement work alternates sections where everything clashes with sections of almost mystical calm.
The intention is that each section should cause its contrasting section to be understood in a new light, but I thought that if the sections had been given more time to make their point, each could have been more thoroughly appreciated for its own sake, as well as its context.
Rhona Clarke finds the one movement form congenial so the influence of Faure's Piano Quartet (four movements) and Beethoven's Sonata in G (three movements) does not extend in that direction.
Her one-movement Jealous Pursuit, played by Joachim Roewer (viola) and Finghin Collins, was like a four-movement sonata in miniature, the basic material neatly organised to form a consistent whole.
It seemed just the right length whereas her Piano Quartet left one wishing that she had given her ideas a grander dimension.
Jonathan Harvey's Curve with Plateaux, played with virtuosic skill by William Butt (cello), was reminiscent not of other cello pieces but of one of those rhapsodic pieces for the shakuhachi, the Japanese end blown flute, with evocative titles like The Song of the Cranes by the Slow River.
Even the sound of the cello was transformed and the friction of the bow on the strings was the breath of a flute-player across the top edge of the bamboo pipe. The form of the piece is suggested by its title.