View from the Green Room: Waterford's sell-out chamber music festival
Waterford Chamber Music Festival took place at Mount Congreve Estate.
The sell-out festival continues tonight with a full house sign for the Chinese Room at the magnificent Mount Congreve estate house. Everything about this estate exudes class and the weekend’s concerts add to that feeling of sophistication and elegance.
Andreas Ioannides on piano and Luba Tunnecliffe on viola opened with Britten’s tender and moving Lachrymae that’s based on John Dowland’s most famous Elizabethan song ‘Flow My Tears’.
Given that much of medieval life was based around dying, it’s no wonder that melancholy, fear and anxiety infuses much of what was written.
Britten’s twist is to insert modern harmonies into the emotional variations of the original and it’s a delight to hear so much solo work from the viola.
Ballybrickener Dr Greg Scanlon has a world premiere here tonight with his colourful composition ‘Among Trees’ that finds its inspiration from the Congreve gardens outside. Greg describes his composition as "a single-movement sonic painting" for piano (Billy O’Brien), viola (Luba Tunnicliffe) and cello (Anastasia Feruleva).
All the magic of the gardens are here in a riot of life that follows germination into growth with nature playing all its parts – rainfall, storms, sunlight and that inner life of strength and courage.
Contrast is everywhere in this composition to create the life of the woods as the strings accelerate and dazzle while the tune always remains constant on the keyboard. I love the romantic viola solo that soars over the composition and the conversational togetherness of the instruments as the trees lace and separate and the ovation that follows is well deserved.
It’s the one hundredth and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of Maurice Ravel and much of his work is included in this year’s festival. It’s not often you hear the blues in a sonata for violin (Siobhán Doyle) and piano (Billy O’Brien). However, Ravel and his friend Hélène Jourdan-Morhange shared a love for jazz and American musical theatre. There’s a huge bluesy, jazzy feel to the work that’s really different and that perpetuum mobile finale just blows me away.
A Schumann Piano Quartet with Siobhán Doyle on violin, Luba Tunnicliffe on viola, Anastasia Feruleva on cello and Andreas Ionnides on piano is the perfect way to finish off a classic evening in Mount Congreve.
The slow movement is one of Schumann’s most achingly romantic melodies and is worth the admission price alone. It begins unnoticed, almost whispered by the cello and seems to fall through the octaves. Only Schumann could have written such a romantic piece.
The sonata finishes in a whirlwind of all four themes although the piano continues to play the dominant role it has been allotted throughout.
An evening of classical quality in classic surroundings.
