Gavin Maloney Conducts

national | arts and media | news report Saturday April 26, 2008 18:45 by Sean Crudden - impero sean.crudden at iol dot ie Jenkinstown, Dundalk, Co Louth. 087 9739945

History and Tradition

Paradoxically the music of Beethoven seemed more youthful in last night's concert than the music of Górecki - a contemporary composer born in 1933. However the program which presented an interesting contrasted juxtaposition was a triumph for conductor, orchestra and soloist who, all, appeared to me to be young and energetic with admirable team spirit and exemplary seriousness of purpose.

The latest concert in the 2007 - 2008 RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra Season took place in The National Concert Hall starting at 8.00 p.m. last night.

Program

Beethoven Symphony No.8 in F major

Interval

Górecki Symphony No. 3 "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs"

Orla Boylan (soprano)
Gavin Maloney (conductor)

Gavin Maloney created a strong impression although he appears to be business-like rather than flamboyant. He has stature, a fine figure and I think he is quite a musical gent.

The Beethoven symphony was well-rehearsed, progressed with good speed and the music had considerable lift. The sound of the drum is a highlight - at the end of the symphony especially - and I thought that was well done. The only timpanist listed in the program is Fergal Caulfield so I suppose that is who it was.

The Górecki piece is long, unrelenting, funereal, repetitive, bereaved. However it sounds very harmonic to me and the whole piece was well sustained and most of the audience seemed to want to listen. For my own part I was seeing things through a prism of pain and restlessness. I was deliberately and self-consciously trying not to annoy and disturb the patrons sitting on either side of me so I must confess to a little attention deficit i.e. I did not hear every note.

Orla Boylan, in a black floor-length gown with a short train and wearing a black pendant, conveyed a feeling of the 1940’s and she did a lot to reinforce and maintain the character of the music and the time it relates to. She stayed in character all the time even during long passages when she was not singing. The members of the orchestra seemed to keep vigil and showed respect for the music in the extended intervals when their area of the orchestra was not engaged.

Orla’s voice is flexible, powerful and it has that indefinable quality of appeal which is the trade mark of every successful singer. I learned from the program that she studied singing with Mary Brennan in DIT College of Music. I had the pleasure some years ago of hearing Mary perform in Holy Trinity Heritage Centre, Carlingford. Mary Brennan is a native of Dundalk.

I am afraid of the audience in NCH. But it must be soul-destroying for a conductor to get a mistimed, loud and unfelt reaction at the end of a long and taxing performance which needed and was given the maximum effort.