Trois pieces pour quatuor a cordes - Stravinsky
String Quartet in Four Parts (exc) - Cage
String Quartet - Benjamin Dwyer
Sechs Bagatellen - Webern Purple
Haze - Hendrix
Youthful gusto and solid musicianship were abundant at the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre last Thursday lunchtime. This concert, the second in the bank's "Mostly Modern" series, was given by four members of the English-based chamber ensemble, Topologies.
The playing of Darragh Morgan and Looby Wilkinson (violins), Reiad Chibah (viola) and James Bush (cello) - all in their mid-20s - did not always show that string-quartet type of homogeneity which some of the music needed. But it was always full of character.
They used rhythmic assertion to home in on the compositional tautness of Stravinsky's Trois pieces pour quatuor a cordes, while the two middle movements selected from Cage's String Quartet in Four Parts were extraordinarily still, even though the passage of notes from one instrument to another was too eventful to display this music's most provocative side - its arhythmic non-motion.
One of the most penetrating performances was of Webern's Sechs Bagatellen. Every note, every gesture counted.
Benjamin Dwyer's String Quartet was given a persuasive first performance. Each of its three movements displays contrasts of styles and ideas, and there is plenty to hold one's attention. But because the various materials tend to imply larger-scale development, the composer's declared exploration of extremity does not have the impact which Cage and Webern achieved by differing kinds of stylistic singlemindedness.
The concert ended with the player's arrangement of Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze. Their flair and rhythmic panache were riveting. Everyone was smiling during and after this music.
