RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra at the National Concert Hall, 27 January 2015
The third of this winter’s ‘Horizons’ concerts this afternoon features the work of composer Philip Hammond. Subtitled ‘Piano Centre Stage’ the three programmed pieces all feature piano and orchestra, including a performance of his recently completed Piano Concerto.
Pianist Michael McHale joins the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Gavin Maloney) and they open with a piece from 2001, ‘… the starry dynamo in the machinery of night…’. Written for a visit by Bill Clinton to Belfast, the piece – its title comes from Allen Ginsberg’s Howl – evokes orchestral Americana, with light transparent textures and fluid style. Its clean rhythmic structures make way for broader, even garish, strokes as the piece progresses, before thinning out to a lean, nocturnal mood at the end. Remembering the Belfast musician and music-collector, Edward Bunting, Hammond’s Orchestral Miniatures and Modulations use traditional tunes transcribed by Bunting in his Ancient Music of Ireland (1796) as starting points. Today we hear three of these, ‘Young Terence McDonough’, ‘The Lamentation of Owen O’Neil’ and ‘Charles McHugh The Wild Boy’, with Hammond himself playing each tune at the piano as a prelude to each of the miniatures that follow. Hammond ingeniously characterises the material of each tune, growing rich textures and colours as if from a seed. The second miniature features some lovely solo playing from the leader of the orchestra, violinist Elaine Clark.
Hammond’s Piano Concerto was commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and was premiered earlier this month by the Ulster Orchestra. Michael McHale was the soloist then as well, and it is good to hear the piece while it’s still fresh. Drawing on two inspirations, a motif from a prelude in Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and Mallarmé’s ironic Spring poem ‘Renouveau’ (Renewal), the result is a study in step-wise motion and acceleration. Hammond describes his approach as ‘retro-romanticism’ and this piece certainly maintains the traditional form of the concerto with its three movements. Stylistically, the work’s idiom seems to recall mid-20th century neoclassicism, along with moments (especially when the piano is heard within the larger texture of the orchestra) that suggest Rachmaninov. The cleanly-organised musical material is played with elegant poise by McHale, and the ensemble efficiently conducted by Maloney, with the piece as a whole clearly conceived as a collaboration of equals. The brisk, complex finale surges to a charged finish, capped off with the single clap of the side-drum, as if marking the finish-line. An effective work, well-played.
Programme:
Philip Hammond: ‘… the starry dynamo in the machinery of night…’ (2001)
Philip Hammond: ‘Young Terence McDonough’; ‘The Lamentation of Owen O’Neil’; and ‘Charles McHugh The Wild Boy, from Orchestral Miniatures and Modulations (2011)
Philip Hammond: Piano Concerto (2014)
Michael McHale (piano), RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Gavin Maloney