Dowdall/Lynch/Malir at the Curtis Auditorium

Cork Orchestral Society, in association with CIT Cork School of Music, presents William Dowdall (flute) John Lynch (viola) Andreja Malir (harp) Thursday 20th September, 8:00pm Curtis Auditorium CIT Cork School of Music What a wonderful combination of instruments! Now, flute and harp, I think, we’re all familiar with, but adding the viola is a stroke of genius. Strong words indeed, I hear you murmur. But this reviewer stands by her words. I will admit a slight bias, being a viola-player myself, but I do find it to have the most beautiful of all the sounds of all the bowed, stringed instruments, with the harp being the most beautiful of all strings of any form. So we’re off to a good start at least. This evening, the gloom of the Curtis Auditorium was not helped by the fact that the lighting has been rigged to support the upper half of the stage with nothing being shone on the lower, which, unfortunately, was where this trio chose to sit. And so we listened to beautiful, romantic music, while having our gaze dragged up to the organ, which was lit up like a ferris-wheel. Opening with Bax’s Elegiac Trio, the harp created a swirling, liquid, ebb and flow setting for a wonderful piece, with the viola and flute creating a sylvan paradise which, if this is a view of death, does not seem quite so bad as it could be, to put it mildly. The concert was annotated by interesting snippets about the pieces delivered by the performers, such as the story of Syrinx, a piece which was originally entitled Pan and then nearly lost for all time after being played nightly for fifteen years as off-stage incidental music by the same musician. Personally, I think the original name suits it better, having much of the capricious nature of the ancient god. Another gem was Clair de Lune, a piece with which most of us would be familiar, but in its original guise as a piano solo. In fact, it might not be going too far to say that we may be over-familiar with it, and do not hear it any more. Listening to Ms Malir, it was like hearing a whole new piece and I could hear myself thinking “Debussy was amazing”. A number of these pieces were originally for other instruments as the repertoire for all three instruments can often be sparse at best. However, do not think that the music was less-than as a result. In fact, upon hearing his Sonatine (originally for piano) as arranged by Carlos Salzedo, Ravel is purported to have said “now, why didn’t I think of that myself?”, which is rather lovely, don’t you think? A. Bax (1883-1953) Elegiac Trio (1916) L. Boulanger (1893-1918) Nocturne (1911) for viola and harp: Assez lent A. Glazunov (1865-1936) Elegy, Op.44 (1893) for viola and harp: Allegretto M. Ravel (1875-1937) arr. Carlos Salzedo Sonatine (1903-05) Modéré; Mouvement de Meneut; Animé C. Saint-Saёns (1835-1921) Fantasie for flute and harp C. Debussy (1862-1918) Clair de Lune from Suite bergamasque, 1890) arr. for solo harp C. Debussy Syrinx (1913) for solo flute C. Debussy Sonata (1915): Pastorale; Interlude; Final http://www.corkorchestralsociety.ie/