Schubert on pace within the Marble Metropolis – The Irish Occasions

Violinist Johnny Gandelsman’s Kilkenny Arts Pageant efficiency of Bach’s suites for solo cello was a marathon. Gandelsman stood and carried out his personal transcription of all six suites, in sequence with out an interval, in a late night live performance on the Black Abbey. And the viewers sat motionless for almost two hours in what needs to be one of many least comfy locations within the nation for listening to music.

The concept of highlighting the variations between cello and violin appears to be on the coronary heart of his strategy. The resonant sounds of the cello linger within the air in the way in which the sound of the violin doesn’t. The violin is nimble in methods the cello just isn’t. So Gandelsman targeted on pace, aided by the truth that the cello suites are conceived fairly otherwise to Bach’s works for solo violin. The actions are all both preludes or dance actions. There aren’t any fugues as within the solo violin sonatas, and nothing of the dimensions or complexity of the Chaconne from the Partita in D minor for violin.

Gandelsman tripped by the works with ease, apparently on the idea that taking part in dances sooner and discovering methods to introduce fleet, folksy, typically Irish-sounding gildings is a positive method to make them extra fascinating. And he did all this with unfailing consistency and technical polish.

The impact, in musical phrases, was slightly like using a digital camera filter or post-production processing in a movie to empty or add heat for explicit scenes or settings. Regardless of all of the ability, the music felt each whipped and straitjacketed, with entire areas of its pure expressive area blocked off.

It was fascinating to listen to the Sixth Suite, which Bach specified for a five-stringed instrument, performed on a five-stringed violin, which launched a novel timbre to the night. And it was fairly great in itself to witness such a targeted supply. If solely Gandelsman had not pushed every little thing so relentlessly he would have sounded much less like somebody hell-bent on turning these works into musical tongue-twisters.

The sense of ideologically-driven taking part in was evident too when the string quartet Brooklyn Rider, of which Gandelsman is a founding member, joined forces with Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, for a night of Rufus Wainwright and Schubert at St Canice’s Cathedral.

The key work was Schubert’s Dying and the Maiden Quartet, interspersed with songs from his cycle Winterreise in preparations by Osvaldo Golijov, the entire topped and tailed with songs by Wainwright in preparations by Brooklyn Rider’s Colin Jacobson.

The best method to describe the Dying and the Maiden can be as Schubert on pace — needlessly, relentlessly, breathlessly quick, with some unusual upendings of steadiness which noticed accompanimental patterns shoved into the foreground for no obvious cause. A tour de pressure in its personal manner. The singing was extra persuasive in Schubert than Wainwright, the voice, much less full than of yore, considerably disembodied from my seat fairly near the entrance.

St Canice’s was additionally the placement for an Opera Gala with soprano Ailish Tynan and the Irish Chamber Orchestra underneath Stephen Barlow. The night’s solely weak spots have been the Rossini and Mozart overtures (The Thieving Magpie and The Marriage of Figaro) which opened every half of the live performance, when the orchestral taking part in was lower than well-disciplined.

Tynan, who gave spoken introductions with the timing of an skilled comedian, was in radiant voice in arias by Handel, Mozart, Puccini, Verdi and Lehár, the tone without delay clear and luscious, state of affairs and character properly conveyed, and the very best notes at all times seeming inside simple attain. Briefly, she was on the highest of her very appreciable type. Barlow and the orchestra have been at all times supportive companions.

Pageant director Olga Barry selected two Russian landmarks for this yr’s programme. Chamber Choir Eire sang Tchaikovsky’s Liturgy of St John Chrysostom within the Black Abbey, and the Carducci Quartet gave a whole cycle of Shostakovich’s string quartets at St John’s Priory.

I caught the second half of the Shostakovich cycle, from the largely understated Seventh, written in 1960 in reminiscence of the composer’s first spouse Nina, to the unbroken sequence of seven sluggish actions that make up the Fifteenth of 1974.

The Carduccis have been at their strongest within the earlier works, the place they responded absolutely to the music’s harmonic tensions. They sounded much less comfy in works the place the writing turned closely dissonant, however have been of their aspect in passages the place clearer searing depth might win the day.

Paul Hillier’s account of the Tchaikovsky Liturgy was as full-toned and full-on as performances of this work have to be. Tchaikovsky was keenly conscious of the Orthodox custom he was writing for. As he informed his patroness Nadezhda von Meck: “I’m nonetheless sure to the church by sturdy ties, however alternatively I’ve lengthy ceased to consider within the dogma.” The richness of sound he sought is achieved by pared-back means — simple harmonies, hardly any counterpoint. Hillier’s singers gave their all to supply an prolonged and stirring immersion in choral resonance.

On a totally completely different scale, recorder participant and recording producer Laoise O’Brien’s For the Report at Kilkenny Fortress’s Parade Tower was a video presentation with spoken introduction and dwell music-making. It blended the historical past of the recorder as an instrument and the story of the profession path of a flexible recorder participant, who deserted her instrument for an affair with the flute, earlier than returning to the true manner. O’Brien’s telling of her musical life story was informative, self-deprecating and witty.