Things Seen, Heard (3)

Thursday 28 February 2019

Two gigs in churches in my neighbourhood this month. Áine O’Dwyer and Eva-Maria Houben at the Old Church in Stoke Newington. Primary reason for going was that I’d enjoyed hearing Houben play her piano pieces on a couple of occasions and wanted to finally hear her play the organ. O’Dwyer’s good value too: I still remember her gig at Silver Road a couple of years ago where for part of her set she climbed onto the roof and dropped mostly small objects onto the punters below. The two of them had obviously worked closely together on the joint performance and got along well. Perhaps a little too well: I was hoping for a tension between the restrained aesthetic of Houben’s compositions and O’Dwyer’s more demonstrative performance practice, but everything proceeded pleasantly. Faint sounds and singing heard from a distance as the audience assembled gave way to some tentative vocal duets from various parts of the church and culminated in a colourful, expressive organ duet. In the middle, O’Dwyer showed how to make the most of a harp that had been left unattended in a church in winter for a few hours.

More Houben last week, played by the Eos Ensemble for the 840 concert series. The evening was lighter and the weather milder in St James’, Islington. As well as Houben’s trio avalon orchard, the programme of music for violin, clarinet and piano included poignant arrangements of three songs by Komitas, a trio by Tim Parkinson and a particularly strong interpretation of Makiko Nishikaze’s Duo for bass clarinet and piano. There were also several premieres – always nice to see pieces dated from the current year in February. James Luff’s standing cycles and Alex Nikiporenko’s Two Waltzes both began as almost skeletal reductions of familiar genres. The simplicity seemed banal and irritating at first but each proceeded to torque their exposed structure into shapes that were both neat and intriguing.