Now in his mid-forties Donnacha Dennehy already has a sizeable output to
his credit and a far from negligible discography. This recent release is the
third CD entirely devoted to his often thought-provoking music. Some of his
instrumental pieces, works for ensemble and his Violin Concerto
Elastic
Harmonic (2005) are available on NMC D133. His complex, though quite
beautiful
Grá agus Bás (singer and ensemble – 2007) - one of his
finest achievements so far - and the short cycle he composed for Dawn
Upshaw,
That the Night Come (2010) are available on Nonesuch
7559-79772-7.
The four orchestral works recorded here span some ten years of his
composing life — from 2000 up to 2009 — and in spite of some differences
these display a number of characteristics that one encounters in
Dennehy's music. Its most striking feature is its raw energy. It
seems unafraid of the very din it can produce. His music, however, is never
gratuitously aggressive and may also tease some calmer moments out of the
everyday turmoil. The finest example of this is to be heard in the most
recent work recorded here
Crane. This had a
somewhat curious genesis. It was conceived as a ballet with live orchestra
and the choreographed movement of cranes located at various building sites
across Dublin. However, the project fell through for various reasons that
may be guessed quite easily. The basic idea, however, remained and Dennehy
went on with the piece as a purely orchestral work. He nevertheless visited
some building sites and had the opportunity to chat with a crane operator
who told him that once he had ascended his ladders and was installed in his
seat high in the air, he felt he could leave the cares of the world behind
him. This found its way into the beautifully moving epilogue of the work but
the first part of the piece brims with powerfully aggressive music - a sort
of updated Mossolov - which shows Dennehy to be a master of the orchestra.
This mastery actually comes through in all the works recorded here. The
music is often quite brightly scored and articulated on machine-like
rhythms. It moves forward with confidence.
Both
O (2001/2) and
The Vandal (2000), though composed
close to each other, differ greatly.
O was
commissioned by Trinity College Dublin in memory of the composer Brian
Boydell who was Professor of Music there for many decades. It is hard to
imagine Dennehy writing an “in memoriam” when one knows the kind of music he
had composed until then. The overall mood is rather ambiguous though a
feeling of sadness prevails. This impression is emphasised through repeated
gestures and unsettling up- and downward glissandi. The music nevertheless
tends to build to a climax that “unexpectedly dissipates” and the piece ends
inconclusively in mid-air.
The Vandal is, on the
whole, more energetic, at times violent but there's also some irony
in the mix. I rather like the way the composer described his working method
then as “creating beautiful objects only in order to throw them against the
wall to watch what way they smash”. This may sound somewhat iconoclastic but
his writing is refreshingly free of prejudice and abounds in energy and fine
moments of orchestral craft. It is particularly amusing to hear how the
music moves after a few seconds of the almost benign and innocent to be
brutally torn apart by the brass. For the most part of this short work, the
music actually subverts fragments in very unexpected ways. Some of the
fragments are very beautiful but they never last very long.
The final work recorded here is
Hive for chamber
choir and orchestra. Although in one single span the piece actually falls
into two parts separated by a bridge passage of sorts. The first part sets
an excerpt from Byron's
Don Juan in which the poet expresses
the impact of sighting London and another from Thomas Beames'
The
Rookeries of London. This the composer describes as an “hysterical,
almost racist” account of the Irish community in the slum life of London:
“They (the Irish) bring their bad habits with them, and leave their virtues
behind”. The first part is brightly scored and alternates episodes of
varying character and musical density but ultimately develops towards the
interlude. Then the second part opens forcefully, hectically, and the
composer relies on a number of ways to render the words — spoken, declaimed
freely and the like — to create a formidable impression of chaos as
reflected in Beames' words.
Hive is a splendid work and is
the real gem here: not instantly accessible but eventually quite
rewarding.
Dennehy's music may not be easy at first but it ultimately
convinces by its sheer expressive strength. Its reliance on repetition may
at times remind one of John Adams or Louis Andriessen rather than the
well-behaved minimalism of Steve Reich. On repeated hearings it emerges as
Dennehy's own.
Hubert Culot
