NCH, Dublin Fri 8pm €10-€35 01-4170000
The music of Georgian composer Giya Kancheli (right) hasn't featured much in Ireland to date. But earlier performances by the RTÉ NSO (in 2000) and in Bantry (in 2001) seem to have whetted our appetite for more. The West Cork Chamber Music Festival will feature his Flute Quintet and Exilin July. Tonight, the RTÉ NSO under James MacMillan gives the Irish premiere of his Fifth Symphony of 1977. This is a work that's both quiet and explosive, a combination of attributes that has impressed a number of Kancheli's colleagues.
Alfred Schnittke said of his symphonies: “In the relatively short period of 20-30 minutes of slow music, we experience a whole lifetime, an entire history; at the same time, the drag of time is absent – we glide high over centuries as if in an aircraft, with no sensation of speed.” And Rodion Shchedrin called him “an ascetic with the temperament of a maximalist: a restrained Vesuvius”.
Tonight's programme also includes the premiere of scenes and interludes from Fergus Johnston's opera in progress, The Earl of Kildare, the Irish premieres of Jennifer Higdon's Percussion Concerto (soloist Colin Currie) and three interludes from James MacMillan's recent opera The Sacrifice.
