Reviewed: Madrigal '75/Cutts, Fleischmann Choir, CSMSO/Spratt Cork International Choral Festival
Fleischmann - The Planting Stick. Clare's Dragoons. Song of the Provinces
The 50th Cork International Choral Festival opened at City Hall, Cork, with a programme that brought together all three of its directors - current director John Fitzpatrick through his planning, his predecessor Geoffrey Spratt through his conducting, and the festival's founding director, the late Aloys Fleischmann, through his music. Although Fleischmann was born in Munich, in 1910, he was reared in Ireland - his family had come here in the late 19th century - and sent off to Munich to complete his music studies. "I was never so enthusiastic about Ireland and its traditions as I was in Munich," he told me once. "I wouldn't for the world stay in Munich, the Celtic pull was too strong." Appointed professor of music at University College Cork at the age of 24, he became a tireless campaigner for things musical, primarily in Cork, but, when opportunity and energy permitted, also nationally.
The Choral Festival and the presence of RTÉ's string quartet in residence in Cork, are two of his most prominent legacies, but he also used to command an entry in the Guinness Book of Records for the length of his tenure with the Cork Symphony Orchestra, he involved himself in the ballet ventures of Joan Denise Moriarty, and, as a young man he wrote a piano quintet which stands as a landmark in the development of music in the Irish Free State.
The works in this programme were all written later. The choral dance suite, The Planting Stick, was first heard in 1957, Clare's Dragoons dates from 1945, and The Song of the Provinces is from 1963.
All three carry a certain sense of reaching down to their prospective audiences. The Planting Stick for choir (Madrigal '75) and ensemble (Louisa Dennehy, flute, Jean Kelly, harp, Ríchéal Ní Riordáin, percussion, and the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet, conducted by Alan Cutts), mixes original and faux folk-style material with tuneful ease, although the setting of the words seems a little cramped - the dance element in the performance was provided by the Cork Arts Studio Dancers, with choreography by Philip McTeggart Walsh.
The vocal solos in Clare's Dragoons, for baritone, choir and orchestra, sounded imaginatively restricted, and this didn't seem to be entirely the fault of the singer, Paul McNamara.
But this work includes a real coup-de-théâtre, in the use of war-pipes, first offstage, then parading up through the auditorium to join the main body of performers.
The mawkish Song of the Provinces demands and rewards audience participation, and in this performance carried the bonus of showing the indefatigable Geoffrey Spratt, cajoling, entertaining, enlightening and improving the singers in his audience, who rewarded him not just with their singing, but also their wholehearted approval.
In short, this celebration of Fleischmann's music concentrated on what are essentially occasional pieces. And, with this event being the occasion it was, and Geoffrey Spratt a very vital musical leader of the Fleischmann Choir and the Cork School of Music Symphony Orchestra, their value as occasional pieces was confirmed.
