IAN Wilson's new organ concerto, Rich Harbour, takes its inspiration from a small cemetery in Caldragh, in Fermanagh.
The composer has described the work as a meditation on "death and what lies beyond" and set out to infuse the piece with music of three distinct types - one aggressive, showy and striving, the second dark and moody, the third more positive and optimistic.
The work received its premiere (postponed from last February) at the National Concert Hall last night, as part of the Dublin International and Choral Festival.
The soloist, Peter Sweeney, rise commandingly to the very considerable demands of the often flamboyant organ writing. Yet it was hard not to experience a certain sense of frustration with the outcome of his labours, for the audibility of the organ was frequently an issue.
Wilson seems to have had a reluctance to unleash the organ on its own.
Under Swedish guest conductor Niklas Willen (who displayed a heavyish hand in the surrounding works by Rossini and Tchaikovsky) orchestra and organ often merged to create a sense of tangled profusion. There were plenty of effective moments in the music (not least the Sibelian opening and the organ's closing chatter), but in between the music often retreated into a sort of busy greyness.
The lunchtime concert at Christ Church Cathedral was, by contrast, one of the brightest of the festival.
Mark Duley and Andrew Johnstone offered a programme of music on two chamber organs, pieces by Mouton, Handel, Mozart and Ferrabosco, framed by two of the concertos by the 18th century Spanish priest, Antonio Soler.
Duley and Johnstone played with such stylishness and verve that all one can say (with the next festival in mind) is, more please!
