Fortnight Publications Ltd.

LettersAuthor(s): Dennis KennedySource: Fortnight, No. 80 (Mar. 22, 1974), p. 18Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25544964 .

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_ 18/FORTNIGHT found in these earlier pictures and

drawings. The seaside scenes are

among the most memorable?No.

13, for example, details the essence

of a commonplace holiday scene,

the groups gazing over the sea wall,

the women comfortably seated gos

siping, the child, or the family

group of No. 26. There are fine

architectural paintings?no. 41 of

Ormond Quay is outstanding and

the painting of the Annesley Dower

House (no. 3) is a little gem. Trees are always beautifully

drawn by Carr and the grace with

which he shows their interleavings in a brown field is consumate.

What one might not expect is to

find a Conot-like humour as one

does in No. 38 or such keenly observed portraits as that of the

child doing her homework. The

mother and young child picture (No. 57) has a tenderness of line

and feeling that are deeply moving.

MOIRAMUIR (Centre Art Gallery)

At the Centre Art Gallery, Stran

millis, Moira Muir, an occupational

therapist at Greenisland Hospital, is showing varied oils, /ater colours

and acrylic paintings of many

styles. It is her water colours that

have the greatest appeal; "Farm

buildings in Snow" is a well con

sidered presentation, every detail of

the composition having its right

degree of emphasis. There is a nice

balance between the sturdy archi

tecture of the buildings and the

fluidity of the branches. There is an

interesting move towards geometric abstraction in "The Eel Boat" (No.

7) and "Red Boat" (No. 15). Her

subjects range from the landscape of Donegal to South Africa, from

Down to Scotland, from still life to

portraits.

Ray Rosenfield

music HUHHIHHHHHIHH There were at least three interesting concerts last week in Belfast, but two of these clashed. However, the

pianist Peter Hill was playing again at Queen's the next day, so those

who wanted to hear him weren't

totally frustrated, even though they's have liked to have heard him

in a more conventional programme in the Ulster Museum. This first

recital happened at the same time as

the annual Queen's University Hamilton Hardy Concert in the Elmwood Hall. David Greer, Pro

fessor of Music, was conducting the

Ulster Orchestra, who must be

wondering more than ever about

their future. It turned out to be a

well-planned programme of English music. Harty is not often heard as a

composer in his own right, but for

many people his arrangement of a

Suite from Handel's Water Music is one of the first standard classics

they hear or play (truer twenty years

ago than now, I'm sure): the curious

hybrid Handel-Harty has impinged on the consciousness of innumer

able innocents, and only purists could complain. Harty's arrange

ments are effective and professional and enjoyable?certainly enough to

evoke happy memories on Wednes

day night of some no more authen

tic, but rougher, performances in

sunny May weather on barges on the

Thames, and by no means as long ago as the reign of King whatever it was back in 1717. The profession alism of the youthful Harty was

evident too in his Comedy Overture. I must say it didn't strike me as in

any way connected with comedy, and it was overlong to a degree. But

it had some tunes that were pleasing while they lasted, even though fairly

forgettable. Early Elgar is a much

better bet, and it was good to get a

chance to hear the Serenade for

Strings, with its own cooly profes sional mining of the vein of poignant nostalgia that somehow avoids the

mawkish. A bold move to devote the

whole of the second half to Vaughn Williams's Fifth Symphony; all the more welcome since it's not a work

you hear every day, in Belfast or

elsewhere. This is an impressive,

carefully built work, stamped with

the integrity you associate with

Vaughn Williams, but without the

coy pastoralism that occasionally weakens his vision. Here he seems to

be in control of his ample material, from the opening horncall to the

concluding quietism of the strings. And it is very much a quietist symphony, not easily so, but strenu

ously eorked for within a character

istically individual framework. It

would be pleasant if we could look to a repeat performance before long.

Peter Hill's lunchtime recital was

absorbing, in spite of those who

regard modern (plink-plonk) music as ribticklingly funny. He began with an eye-opener, Scriabin's Black

Mass Sonata, dating from 1913. The

intensity and concentration of the

writing was remarkable, and Peter Hill captured all the satanic flavour of the piece. Equally impressive was

the sense of a musical argument

being wrung out of the anguish. More please. Ditto with the Stock

hausen and Messiaen. We were

given three of Stockhausen's Kla

vierstucke, and each of these in its own way was rivetting. Whilst full of

surprises, each piece had its own

logic and inner tension. Peter Hill

made you realise also what terrific

fun they must be to play if you have

the technique. I found it hard to

comprehend the remark of one

member of the audience, who

emerged saying how depressing he'd "

found the whole recital. On the

contrary, it was invigorating, espe

cially with Messiaen's rhythmically

exciting Canteyodyaja to finish with.

Mark Storey wmmmm?m?mmmmm?mmmmmmammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmd

SOUNDING BRASS If you live halfway between Belfast

and Portaferry, dependent for travel

to the urban awfulness of Ulsterbus

or the charity of friends, an orches

tral concert at Newtownards, only

14p away (single) seems to be a good

thing to go to. And a rare chance to

patronise the Ulster Orchestra.

Alas! the concert on March 9th was

not worth the 28p bus fare, the

hour's wait to get the late bus home,

and the 60p ticket. The orchestra is,

to put it unUlsterishly plain, not

very good: ragged with weak and

wobbly strings, and horns that keep

you on the edge of your seat. The

soloist in Beethoven's Third Piano

| Concerto was no more than compe

! tent, but better than the orchestra. | At home, for nothing, I could have

heard Kempe & the Munich Phil

harmonic playing the same Beet- !

hoven symphony (No. 4) on Radio 3, ]

plus Lupu playing Mozart's 23rd j

Piano Concerto. As it was, I got back just in time to hear Brendel

playing that most wonderful of all

pieces of European classical music:

Schubert's last sonata?without,

however, the authority of Schnabel's

profound and connected under

standing. (Brendel's somewhat epi sodic playing of Schubert's late

piano music in this Radio 3 series

lacked cohesion and fluidity in all

but the last sonata but one, and the

last two movements of this sonata.)

The question arises: is it worth

patronising (or reviewing) a poor orchestra simply because it is local

?particularly when Radio 3 offers

such a standard of comparison? The same question arises on con

sidering that self-congratulatory in

stitution with delusions of grandeur, the Ulster Museum. There were two

lectures at it recently which prompt ed me to impose upon a car-owning friend. At both I was regaled with

praise for the Museum by its func

tionaries. The first was on the

African Birds and European Mi

grants of Lake Chad, in which an

eminent figure in the ornithological world gave a lecture so full of urns

and ahs that it compared with

French lectures at Queens, and with

slides that were not only dirty but

often badly faded as well. It could

have been a most interesting lecture

had the problems of flight over the

Sahara been fully discussed. (In the

3-4 weeks before leaving Lake Chad

to fly over the desert, the migrant bird may as much as double its

weight to provide itself with fat for

the journey, thus making it an easy

prey for its enemies.) But this was

dealt with only briefly. A similar lack of depth was

evident in another lecture by Dr

Coles of Cambridge on Prehistoric

Musical Instruments?though it

was in this case due to lack of time.

The lecture was spoiled by the

shortness of the musical illustra

tions and by the quality of the

sound. (Surely a museum that can

spend hundreds of thousands on

trendy pictures and Spanish Trea

sure should be able to afford a

decent tape-recorder, not to men

tion a portable screen that is not

yellow and wrinkled?) It was given in celebration (I might say congratu lation) of the Museum's purchase of

the only complete (and playable) Irish Bronze Age horns in existence,

and the occasional admission fee of

75p was levied to cover the cost of

the terrible 'Champagne' and rub

[ bery Ulster cheese, the consumption

| of which reduced the time allowable ! for the lecture. Though many I women in the audience seemed to

have come?dressed to kill?only to

be seen, I could have done with more

lecture and no refreshments. It was

surprising that an expert in prehis toric musical instruments was not

himself a musician, and that his

treatment of ethnographic 'primi tive' instruments was so uninform

ed. The .highlight of the evening was

the sounding of the new acquisitions

by two Army bandsmen in bow ties

and red jackets, an occasion whose

rituality was probably not new to the

horns. The staff of the Ulster Mu

seum duly patted the Trustees on

the back, and the horns were taken

away again to await exhibition in the

cultural catacomb.

In some respects (but not in the

brass section) the Ulster Museum

and the Ulster Orchestra have much

in common. Like commuters from

Portaferry, they have a long way to

go

Anthony Weir

letters BBBBBI Irish Television

Dear Sir,

Intemperate letters like that from Mr O Glaisne in your last issue make one despair of North-South

understanding. Without descend

ing to his level of abuse might I ask him to read again my Dublin Letter on what RTE has to offer Northern

Protestant viewers?

The point being made was that

what distinguishes RTE from any

regional British commercial station

is God and Gaelic. Mr O Glaisne

may be all for a religious flavour,

plus Irish, on Irish television, but

my article was about the likely

impact of this on Northern "loyal ists". Will it help them to feel a

sense of identity with the Republic? If, in cooler temper, he reads the

piece again in this light, I am sure he will see that his other criticisms are

irrelevant and unfounded.

Yours, etc.

Dennis Kennedy

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