Reviews

Classical

In this first of two concerts to raise funds for the National String Quartet Foundation, the City of Cork Symphony Orchestra shared the platform with the re-named Vanbrugh string quartet. It was a night of exquisite music, beautifully performed for a highly appreciative audience.

The musical snob in my make-up ‘tut-tuts’ at an audience that applauds between the movements of symphonies, etc.

However, I could easily identify with the emotions of those who clapped during the Vanbrugh Quartet’s performance of Schubert’s ‘Death and the Maiden’ quartet. Each of its four movements has such drama and such memorable melodies that the temptation to show one’s appreciation is irresistible.

The full-blooded, totally committed playing, the superbly plotted range of dynamics, and the rhythmic freedom of the first movement drew rapturous applause, which seemed to challenge the players to do even better in succeeding movements — and they obliged.

Vanbrugh violinist, Keith Pascoe, then discarded his bow in favour of the conductor’s baton, as he led the City of Cork Symphony Orchestra through two extremely demanding works, both Russian, and very different in character. The orchestra rose to the challenge extremely well. Glinka’s ‘Ruslan and Lyudmila’ overture tests the precision of professional orchestras, but the CCSO were able for it and sparkled and sang as if they were professionals.

Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathetique’ symphony poses different challenges — sudden changes of dynamic that range from the almost inaudible to huge, overpowering ‘tuttis’, very exposed instrumental solos, lots of rubato, warmth contrasting with bleak despair and, under Pascoe’s inspired guidance, the orchestra responded brilliantly.

The raw, passionate playing of this amateur orchestra was quite thrilling and much-appreciated.

ART REVIEW

Facing Pages

Lewis Glucksman Gallery, UCC

By Marc O’Sullivan

The Great Book of Ireland/Leabhar Mór na hÉireann features work by 121 artists, 143 writers and nine composers. It was acquired by UCC last year, and is on show, under glass, at this exhibition. Facing Pages is an extension of the book, including works from UCC’s collection, and others borrowed from the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin. It is something of a review of Irish art of the past 40 years or so.

The Great Book is currently opened on Samuel Beckett’s last poem, on the left, and Louis le Brocquy’s portrait of the author, on the right. Regrettably, Beckett’s writing is too spidery to read, but le Brocquy’s study of his head suggests a ghostly presence — fittingly, as both were well-advanced in years when they made their contributions, and Beckett had kept a distance from Ireland all his adult life.

Many of those who contributed to The Great Book between 1989 and 1991 are, like Beckett and le Brocquy, no longer with us. Barrie Cooke died earlier this year, and is represented here by two of the ‘Great Irish Pike’ lithographs he collaborated on with the English poet, Ted Hughes. One features an outlandish bird’s head and the words: “He fell asleep in Job/He woke in the Book of Vermin.”

Tony O’Malley is represented by a dark works in oils: ‘Van Gogh, Winter’ — surely one of his finest paintings — and the buoyantly colourful acrylic, ‘Junkanoo — Nassau — Bahamas.’ And TP Flanagan’s ‘Polythene Wrapped Turf Stack And An Egg Broken On A Pan’ is as delightful as its title.

Facing Pages raises the question of whether painting has any great relevance for younger Irish artists. Some of the strongest pieces are conceptual, and most of these are made by women. Cecily Brennan’s work in video, ‘Melancholia,’ is inspired by Hans Holbein’s painting ‘The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb’. A woman lies in a box, with blood soaking the white cloth beneath her. The work is at once dreamy and visceral.

Marie Foley’s ‘The Last Judgement’ is made of bog oak, metal, slate and porcelain, in an arrangement that suggests a female figure on her back, with her breasts formed by the bowls of a weighing scales, and her vagina represented by a metal hook. It’s a fearsome piece of work, as provocative as it is full of mischief.