An Irishman's Diary

THERE was a poignant moment in the McNally household recently when, after five years of shared suffering, I formally accepted my daughter’s resignation as a violin student.

In some ways it should have been a relief. As readers may know, our house also now has two cats and a seven-year-old boy soprano, so the winter ahead had threatened more high-pitched noises in the livingroom than I could deal with. And yet, vis-a-vis the violin at least, we were already well over the worst.

The early years of practice, when my daughter was a novice and when even the old cat sometimes had to cover its ears, were long behind us. She was due to start grade five now: the upper foothills of a mountain range on top of which sit the likes of Martin Hayes and Anne-Sophie Mutter.

But even at our level, oxygen was already getting thinner, and of late my daughter had suddenly found herself with too many competing demands, including secondary school and being a teenager (Grade 1), both of which require a lot of her time and energy.

So this week, with a heavy heart and a melancholy soundtrack playing in the background, I informed her violin teacher that we were declaring the case closed – as it were – at least for a year.

It’s not exactly O’Carolan’s Farewell to Music. On the contrary, that soundtrack I mentioned was the same daughter playing piano, which she continues to do with alacrity (a brilliant teacher, Alacrity, by the way – I can’t praise him highly enough).

That was part of the problem, in fact. As anyone who tries to combine both will know, it’s always easier to sit down at a piano than to pick up a violin. Both can be played badly. But at least with the piano, you can see where the notes are, and when you hit them they stay hit.

The violin, by contrast, is a notoriously unforgiving instrument, whereon the middle of a note can be as elusive as the Higgs boson particle. You know it’s there somewhere. Finding it is the problem.

Anyway, we were a bit further up the slopes of piano-playing, so something would probably have had to give eventually. But I knew the fiddle’s days were numbered a while back when, on top of the slim-but-punitively- expensive music books her studies officially demanded, she talked me into buying her a collection of Beatles’ piano parts.

It was a bittersweet experience later to hear her taking time off from Chopin to play Lady Madonna and Norwegian Wood, just for fun. We had gained a pianist, clearly, but were losing a fiddler in the process. Strings and roundabouts, I suppose.

THE ADVENTUREhas only increased my respect, meanwhile, for those who persist with the violin all the way to excellence. I was therefore even more impressed than usual this week to receive the latest bulletin from Maria Kelemen and her orchestra, whose name – the Young European Strings – reflects its founder's still-unbridled optimism.

Kelemen created the YES music school back in gloomy 1988, having come to Ireland from Hungary (via the Netherlands) and brought the famous Kodaly method with her. Since when, she has lived to witness another economic depression here. Despite which, her school is still going strong and has now seen a whole generation of young musicians through to adulthood.

Maria stings my heart a little by mentioning that among her current students is one Isobel Cordone, who at the grand old age of 14 already has 11 years of violin playing behind her. They start them early in YES. One of the results is that, having done her Junior Cert, Isobel will now spend transition year studying at Vicenza Conservatory in Italy.

But it’s not all about music. Maria speaks with equal pride about Oisin Friel, a viola player and grade A student who is just starting medical studies in Trinity College, but who spent the past summer in Botswana, working in a school for orphans.

Extracurricular activities aside, it almost goes without saying that Kelemen’s students distinguished themselves at this year’s Feis Ceoil. And sure enough, the YES chamber orchestra will be among those performing in the National Concert Hall on September 24th, as part of a series showcasing Feis winners.

In the interim, and getting back to O’Carolan, I might also mention that this coming Sunday night, the same NCH will be on the receiving end of a virtual invasion of string players from Ireland’s north east.

The forces amassing include the Meath Harp Ensemble, a product of O’Carolan’s birthplace Nobber. These will be joined by Ceoltóirí Drumlin, a 70-strong traditional orchestra. And further swelling the ranks will be the award-winning vocal chords of Our Lady’s Secondary School Choir from Castleblayney.

Whatever else, the event promises to be highly-strung. In any case, the groups will perform separately and then together – all 161 of them – in a finale that may test the floorboards of the National Concert Hall stage. Any profits from the show will go to charity. Tickets for €10 are available from nch.ie