Hebrides Overture - Mendelssohn
"Messenger", Violin Concerto No. 1 - LI Ian Wilson
Symphony No 4 (Romantic) - Bruckner
Friday night's concert at the National Concert Hall made me think, once again, that most performances of Bruckner's symphonies are too slow. The National Symphony Orchestra's brisk account of Symphony No. 4 ("Romantic"), with Gerhard Markson conducting, might not have pleased those who like their Bruckner spacious and full of cosmic aspiration; and there were ragged moments, including some crucial entries in wind and horns.
Nevertheless, this was a well-paced, passionate and independent view of the work, and a full-blooded performance. The urgent rhythmic style was a reminder that many of Bruckner's ideas are rooted in dance; and that was not the only place where Markson successfully and imaginatively cut across some of the reverential performance-practices associated with this composer.
The concert included the premiere of Ian Wilson's Messenger, Violin Concerto No. 1. In this highly personal work, the four movements ("Messages") are influenced by the composer's experiences, both during the NATO bombardment of Belgrade when he and his family lived there, and subsequently in Ireland. It is, he says, "a testament to fear, anger and determination".
Catherine Leonard was a superb soloist. The violin plays almost all the time and has close relationships with some members of the orchestra, especially the harp. This solo part calls for the acuity of the chamber musician, as well as an independent personality.
With just over 35 minutes of music, most of it slow, this is a long and predominantly dark piece. It shows the composer's characteristic blend of crafted detail, concern with form, and disciplined, neoRomantic expression. The performance was one of the most authoritative premieres I have heard in recent times.
Olivier Messiaen Festival
The National Gallery
The Royal Irish Academy of Music's festival celebrating the work of that uniquely mystical and sensual 20th-century master, Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992), opened in the National Gallery on Friday. English pianist Paul Crossley, a former pupil of Messiaen, and his pianist wife, Yvonne Loriod, presented selections from works spanning the 1920s to the 1970s, alongside music by Debussy, Takemitsu and Crossley himself.
In his 1929 Preludes, the 20-year-old Messiaen incorporated innovative ideas about rhythm and harmony. His distinctive sound-world emerged early and became the agent of expression for his deeply held Roman Catholic belief, as in the massive cycle Vingt regards sur l'enfantJesus (1944) which taps into the realm of mystical ecstacy in a way that often approaches the voluptuous.
In the even larger cycle, Catalogue d'oiseaux (1958), his own annotations of birdsong appear as primary material. In later works, including The Mockingbird from Des canyons aux etoiles (1974), Crossley's final piece, Messiaen returned to simpler means while retaining his fingerprint sonorities.
Crossley applied a detached authority to three of the Vingt regards, employing a light pedal in music whose fervour might invite an indulgent right foot. The resulting clear view of Messiaen's many-layered textures compromised neither overall integrity nor richness. In six of Debussy's preludes (Book II, 1913), Crossley chose a more elaborate style, the effect being characterful but thick, sometimes ponderous. Clarity was restored in Takemitsu's painting-inspired Les yeux clos, and in Crossley's Messiaenesque tribute to the Japanese composer, A Vision of Takemitsu.
By Michael Dungan