Suite No 2 In F - Holst
Sowetan Spring - James MacMillan
Omaggio - Michael Ball
Small Small Big - Jennifer Walshe
Amphion - Fergus Carroll
Four Scottish Dances - Malcolm Arnold
It was brave of the Irish Youth Wind Ensemble to commission a work from Jennifer Walshe, a former trumpeter with the ensemble who is completing a doctorate in composition at Northwestern University, in Illinois. Walshe is an uncompromising composer. Small Small Big splits the ensemble into small groups, placed around the auditorium of the NCH on both floors, as well as on the stage and outside the room's four walls.
Beyond the issue of sound in space, Small Small Big is concerned with explorations of the ensemble's raw means of sound production. The blowing of wind through tubes and the clicking of keys become sounds of interest in themselves, the normal musical results jettisoned like a banana thrown away while its skin is kept for inspection.
I wouldn't say the young players felt entirely comfortable with their unusual tasks, and, with James Cavanagh conducting on stage, at such a distance from some of the players, not everything fell into place as well as it might have.
But rhythmic dislocation between players who are physically separated becomes a spatial phenomenon to the listener, so some of the flaws in this performance added to the interest of this peculiarly compelling piece.
In James MacMillan's Sowetan Spring, written to commemorate Nelson Mandela's release from prison in 1990, the ensemble, under John Wallace, created a mood of bludgeoning protest. Much of the work is blocky and hockety, sounding a bit like Louis Andriessen, but without the sort of underlying structure the Dutch composer would create. MacMillan rarely engages in a gesture that's less than immediately effective. He knows exactly what he wants and how to get it.
