Lex Ferenda

My post previewing the RTÉ Living Music Festival and its programme of works by Arvo Pärt has been getting quite a lot of hits, mainly through Google searches. If you stuck around, this post may interest you.

Indeed, I hope that those of you who passed through here actually managed to get some tickets after all! Every event over the weekend was sold out; Lyric FM’s Bernard Clarke said about Friday night’s concert that it attracted “the most diverse audience you have ever seen at a contemporary music concert”. Due to a combination of other commitments and early sellouts, I attended two concerts, the National Symphony Orchestra/Philharmonic Choir/Joanna McGregor on Friday (Lamentate, Berliner Messe, Credo) and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra on Sunday (Collage uber B-A-C-H, Passacaglia, Tabula Rasa, Wenn Bach Bienen gezuchtet hatte, and Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten, and a - fascinating, haunting and intriguing - new commission by David Fennessy, This Is How It Feels (Another Bolero). Both concerts were excellent, and in particular I was impressed at how different the works were (I wasn’t familiar with all of them) and how the concentrated period of listening meant that you could really get a sense of the different parts (no pun intended) of the composer’s career to date. (I also came away with a DVD and CD which I thought was pretty restrained under the circumstances). While I think that works like Spiegel im Spiegel (performed at another concert this weekend) are wonderful and compelling (and I could listen to that piece over and over), it’s reassuring that RTÉ did not rely on this ’style’ alone, but explore everything from the familiar Cantus to the recent works like Lamentate and Passacaglia to the early (and often chaotic) Credo, probably one of the most unusual things that the Philharmonic Choir has done in many years.

I can certainly confirm and endorse the common view that there was really some atmosphere at these concerts - and a lot more discussion/chitchat/explanation about the music between strangers in the audience. Pärt was present and was greeted with the appreciation he deserved (lengthy standing ovations all round); he even was kind enough to sign autographs, including for this shy listener!

More from Karlin Lillington, Sinéad Gleeson, Annette Clancy; Shane Hegarty of the Irish Times was at the separate concerts in Co. Louth last week (and also came away with a signed programme).

Most importantly : RTÉ has been improving its website - and you can now ‘listen again’ to concerts broadcast (live or delayed) on Lyric FM for a week after it is broadcast. So that means that you have until this Friday coming to hear last Friday’s concert. Sunday’s concert was broadcast as part of the regular contemporary music show Nova, and can be heard again here. Both require RealPlayer. While it’s not a high-quality stream, it should be a taster and an encouragement and a way to relive memories!