Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Better Luck than Brahms'Author(s): Judith JenningsSource: Fortnight, No. 257 (Dec., 1987), p. 27Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25551381 .

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Better luck

than Brahms' SINCE he won outright the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow, Barry

Douglas has become hot property inter

nationally. A smartly dressed audience packed the Ulster Hall to applaud his opening night interpretation of Brahms' First Piano

Concerto. The composer, who gave its first

performance in 1859?when it was not a

success?would have warmed to such a

rapturous reception.

Douglas evoked the delicate and the vibrant

from the Steinway with consummate ease,

supported by the impressive 110-piece Mon

treal Symphony Orchestra. This combination was particularly effective in the adagio, with

impeccably phrased dialogue between piano and strings, and in the thundering turbulence

of the finale. Fortunately the concert, which

included a flamboyant interpretation of

Strauss's Don Juan and Bartok's Concerts

for Orchestra, will be televised soon.

Incidentally, Douglas was spotted in the

Linenhall after his performance, chatting with

old friends who were not in dinner jackets, and he admitted to reading Fortnight.

Flute and piano recitals would suggest a

meagre attendance in the Elmwood Hall. How

can one account for three nights of full

houses in the Whitla? Perhaps because, as the

Festival blurb modestly asserts, they have

booked "the most famous flautist in the

world, who is also probably the most famous

Ulsterman in the world". No points for

guessing James Galway. Thinner, less

ebullient, more serious, he performed, in his

second programme, works by Hue, Feld,

Gaubert and Borne: composers probably unheard of by the majority of the audience.

The sensitive piano accompanist was

Phillip Moll, who had to be coaxed to

acknowledge applause, although his pedigree is almost as impressive as Galway's. The best

known works were Debussy's Clair de

Lune, perfectly interpreted, and En Bateau, restful with the rippling keys simulating undulations.

In the Feld sonata there was spontaneous

applause after the first movement, allegro

giocoso, which resembled an animated, noisy discussion. Borne's Carmen Fantasy, an

operatic pot-pourri, gave both performers the

opportunity to show off their expertise. The music was read throughout so it was

not until the encores that we could enjoy

Galway's puckish smile and rakishly twitch

ing left eyebrow. Of course we had Danny

Boy played with a lingering nostalgia and, as

a hint to the audience, who were sitting

confortably for more entertainment, a spirited

Flight of the Bumble Bee. Galway's next flight will be to London and from there round the world again. Let's hope he lands in

Belfast next November.

Judith Jennings

LU I .'.,. -JZ*m m^^mW^^^^^mmS^m^^m^mmmmmmm

Barry Douglas? hot property

Again I say these companies must be learnt from if we are going to

get our folk and saga literature on to the stage. The acrobatic dancing was stunning and amusing, and there was a beautiful mime of an old

boatman taking a girl across a river. You could feel the boat rocking. Maura O'Connell at the Arts was brilliantly accompanied by Arty

McGlynn and Nollaig Casey, plus a young Strabane guitar player of

real quality. Most of the songs were ordinary enough but when she

essayed the standard You'll Never Know she really did it justice, and she

brought the house down with her encore number, Irish Mollie.

The Road to Mecca at the Lyric started well. There was a

striking set by Shirley Bork, suggesting a humble South African house in which an ageing woman has discovered herself as an artist. The play seemed to have the virtues of Ibsen, painstakingly letting people

explore themselves to discover a spiritual truth. I thought Stewart

Parker could learn from this, for Pentecost works in the same mode

more flashily and impatiently. Alas the actors seemed strained and the three of them were trying to

sustain a long, slow, subtle text that lacked the images, atmosphere, and symbolism that keep Ibsen and Chekov going. Phyl Doherty's

Miss Helen embodied loss of nerve without suggesting the power that

had transformed her life and made her into an artist. Aingeal Grehan's

Elsa conveyed a superficial mixture of bad temper and affection, and

Kevin Flood's Marius Byleveld seemed like a third-rate Pastor Manders.

It is hard to say with a long, complicated play but I would guess it was the script's fault. The big truths when they came seemed com

monplace?that the local people were really jealous of the creative

artist, that the brash young woman was really ashamed of having had

an abortion, that the puritan pastor was really 'in love' with the old

lady. I suspect that the actors were crying out for a stronger director.

At the time of writing there were still big moments to experience.

Lynda Henderson denounced the RSC's Hamlet more fiercely than I have ever heard a play denounced. My heart warmed to her criticism of

Belfast audiences who are so keen to be called 'a good audience' that

they often applaud rubbish. However the word was that The Comedy of Errors was brilliant.

My last two Festival events were musical. At the Harp Folk Club

Mick Hanly and guitarist Peter Condell illustrated the rich depth of Irish popular music. Hanly writes fragmentary but serious songs in

what you might think is the impoverished Irish 'country and western' style?no style is impoverished if you use it right.

He is a lovely singer and a good guitar player, and his songs touch

all sorts of sensitive moments in the farcical tragedy of human

relationships, how we hurt each other, how we aspire to be 'in love' as

damned souls aspire to be in heaven. He has totally grasped an idiom

which allows his voice and Peter Condell's lead guitar to ravish an

audience?all musicality and sadness and creative energy.

Finally I got to the Guinness spot, which has always been a

highlight for me, to hear an American jazz singer I had never heard of

before I saw the programme, Betty Carter. She must be one of the best

singers in the world, torturing old standards like Blue Moon and All the

Things You Are?not to get more feeling out of them, but to remint

them as though you had never heard them before, as though you never

understood before what singing could be.

Before she came on we had our own high-class musicians?Gay

Mclntyre, Norman Watson?playing very competently, but somehow

unhappily. Gay tends to overdo his brilliance to prove a point. When

the Americans started to play it wasn't just the callow prejudice of the

audience that made the strangers seem better: they underplayed, but they knew what they were up to and believed in it. And then this lovely

middle-aged woman in black took hold of the microphone and

undersang the songbook with such musicality and personality that an

ignorant audience was awed and excited. Every drumbeat, every touch

on the bass, the piano playing, was bent to a common purpose

?celebrating the genius of Betty Carter.

She didn't sing one loud or impassioned note. She sang a lot of

substandard lyrics. She didn't make a joke. She might have been Bach reincarnated, giving herself musical problems and solving them with

the same serious delight that you feel in Bach, and a faith she didn't have to question that if you love the music and have the power all you have to do is get up there and do it.

The three young black musicians with her were teased and made love

to and sorted out by this maestro, reducing Holliday's What a Little

Moonlight Can Do to an almost wordless game between leaping

rhythms and a vanishing melody, or taking all the lushness out of All

the Things You Are and reaffirming the beauty of the song. Her scat

singing, for me, far outdoes Ella Fitzgerald's because it was what it

should be?a natural leaping on from singing the lyric to exploring the tune and harmonies, not a showing off, not a joke, but music, music,

music. Thank you! After the show we went down to David Grant's Old Museum to

drink a little wine and savour unfledged talents and discover what a

beautiful building that is. I hope it can be refurbished and set to work.

James Simmons As the Festival was coming to a close, good news arrived after

months of waiting for Noreen O'Hare, manager of the threatened Crescent Centre (Fortnight 252, 254). The Department of the Environment, which had threatened to put the building on the

open market, has now relented after strong opposition? and the

building is to be offered to the Crescent itself. No one will yet disclose the figure the Crescent has to raise for

the purchase, but Noreen is cautiously optimistic. Her response to

the news was simple. "We're absolutely delighted," she said. While plans are made for acquisition and development of the

building, Noreen hopes that a limited arts programme will get under way by the new year.

27 December Fortnight

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