Search - Kasper De Roo :: MARTIN : Piano Concerto No. 2 / Harp Concerto / Beato Angelico

Interesting music

G.D. | Norway | 01/14/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Marco Polo's valuable series of contemporary Irish music ranges from the excellent (Corcoran) to the less distinguished. On the whole, I'd say that this disc falls somewhere in between, but overall probably on the positive side. The piano concerto, at least, is a fine work. It is inspired by the city of Dublin and moves from the dark and desolate description of the city before dawn through the colorful business of the day and back into the quiet night. The music is sometimes suggestive of the sleek urbanity suggested in some of Martinu's works but Martin has, in the end, his own voice; an appealing work in an astringent but not too difficult idiom. Beato Angelico is, perhaps unsurprisingly, inspired by the paintings by Fra Angelico, and it is a fine work that survives several hearings. The harp concerto is inspired - perhaps too much so - by Stravinsky. It is a quieter and frankly gloomier work and in the end not particularly memorable. The performances are fine (the composer himself plays the piano adroitly in the piano concerto) and the sound serviceable if a little dull. Recommended for the adventuresome."