Barry: Piano Quartet; Au milieu; Triorchic Blues; Bob; Sextet; Sur les pointes; Swinging Tripes and Trillibubkins; '–––'

There are moments in Gerald Barry’s Piano Quartet that recall Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for String Quartet. But then everyone cries ‘Stravinsky!’ at some point when pressed to describe a new piece. Actually, the Quartet sounds the most Irish of Barry’s works, and his rhythmic surprises aren’t so much like Stravinsky’s metrical jujitsu as shivers of exhilaration. The earliest ensemble piece, whose title is just a straight line, is the coolest music, like a dogged game in which targeted notes are clues.

Our rating

5

Published: January 20, 2012 at 3:13 pm

COMPOSERS: Barry
LABELS: NMC
WORKS: Piano Quartet; Au milieu; Triorchic Blues; Bob; Sextet; Sur les pointes; Swinging Tripes and Trillibubkins; ‘–––’
PERFORMER: Noriko Kawai (piano)Nua Nós/Dáirine Ní Mheadhra
CATALOGUE NO: D022 DDD

There are moments in Gerald Barry’s Piano Quartet that recall Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for String Quartet. But then everyone cries ‘Stravinsky!’ at some point when pressed to describe a new piece. Actually, the Quartet sounds the most Irish of Barry’s works, and his rhythmic surprises aren’t so much like Stravinsky’s metrical jujitsu as shivers of exhilaration. The earliest ensemble piece, whose title is just a straight line, is the coolest music, like a dogged game in which targeted notes are clues. It’s paraphrased in the huge and virtuoso piano piece, Au milieu, which becomes, in effect if not intention, a parody of Lisztian bravura. The other big solo piano work is Sur les pointes, whose balletic title indicates a teasing, slow procession of staccato chords, which eventually goes beserk, ‘like a mad pianola’. Noriko Kawai is magnificent. Most of the music on the disc is Bacchic, yet precision-engineered. This makes life hell for the players, but they achieve miracles: a triumph for everyone concerned. Adrian Jack

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