Classical Review: Classical Thursday Recital Series

St Columba’s, Ennis

As pure song curls through the murmurings of the wondrous strings, prattling women, merry ploughboys, lovestruck swains and wistul old men were just some of the voices vividly evoked by baritone Seán Boylan at the Classical Thursday song recital in the neo Gothic interior of St Columba’s Church in Ennis.

Boylan — son of former Meath football manager Seán snr — is one of this year’s crop of graduates from the Royal Irish Academy of Music. Although he began his studies on piano and was busy building up a reputation as an organist, his recital in Ennis with pianist Tham Horng Kent showed not only that he has a fine baritone voice but also an engaging, polished platform presence.

With the vocal technique well under control, Boylan demonstrated a great range in mood and dynamic in a diverse programme of songs in French German and English. Opening with a set of Schubert Lieder, the sustained legato of ‘Der Fluss’ gave way to the heady exuberance of ‘Meine Liebe ist Grun’. Diction throughout was impeccable even in the tongue twisting ‘Ballade des Femmes de Paris’, a number which particularly demonstrated his knack for reaching out and drawing the listener into the conspiratorial humour of the Debussy Ballade.

A setting of Yeats’s ‘When You are Ol’d was given a more sombre senatorial treatment that suggested a more mature voice.

Kent made the most of the limited dynamics of the house piano. Bracing and effervescent in Hugh’s setting of ‘The Spanish Lady’ but with a breathtaking pianissimo in ‘She Moved Thru the Fair’.

For an encore the duo sent us out with the sweet sugary kick of an Eric Coates sentimental salon bon bon, I heard you singing.

This was an absorbing and entertaining recital sung with charm and professionalism. I have a feeling this baritone won’t be climbing back up to the organ loft any time soon.

* Classical Thursdays at Ennis continues with Cara O’Sullivan tomorrow, and Edel O’Brien next week