The profile of Irish contemporary music has been raised considerably in recent years, with Black Box making a valuable contribution. The present disc features two very different composers, both in their early thirties, both writing with style and assurance.
Grainne Mulvey won Irish Radio's Musician of the Future competition for Rational Option Insanity (1993). Despite its brevity, this fast-moving piece has a well-judged momentum, with the variation theme distinctive in its own right. Sextet Uno (1997) is altogether more personal. From an evocative opening of rustling strings and tuned percussion, the music unfolds in organic chains of sound. Intricacy of detail is integrated throughout into the work's rhythmic profile, although the ending rather loses itself in superfluous flurries.
Deirdre Gribbin gained prominence through her opera Hey Persephone!, given at the 1998 Almeida Festival and among the few recent stage works with real musical and dramatic instinct. How to make the water sound (1997) opens in the upper reaches of violin and cello, with melodic and rhythmic definition gradually coming into focus. A sequence of hushed piano chords leads into the pensive final section, the viol-like intertwining of strings a poetic recollection of the opening. The sound of water is evoked but never imitated. Equally stiking is Giles (1989), a Watteau-inspired evocation of the commedia dell'arte figure, drawing on associations real and imagined - not least the Pierrot imagery of Schoenberg's song-cycle.
Excellent performances from the members of Concorde, in a cool, natural ambience which suits the crystalline nature of the writing. Well worth investigating.'