September 29, 2007 performance reviewed by Dave Conlin Read.
The Albany Symphony Orchestra traveled to The Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield for a program that included the world premiere of The Flight of the Earls, a concerto for Bagpipe and Orchestra. Robinson McClellan, the composer, introduced the piece as an interpretation of a watershed event in the struggle of the Irish against the oppression of the English, adding that the work also is in recognition of the comity of the current situation in Ireland.
The event was the 1607 mission undertaken by the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell wherein they attempted to sail to Spain to raise an army so that they could return and finally throw the English out of Ireland.
The concerto was played by Uilleann piper Ivan Goff, with A.S.O. music director David Alen Miller conducting a reduced ensemble of the orchestra. On his website, McClellan describes the work as a tone poem in two parts:
“The first half depicts several episodes from the Earls’ journey, book-ended with solemn string and wind passages and a sighing theme for the whole orchestra. The second half takes an episode from the Flight as its starting point—the unexpected appearance of a salmon during their journey, which to the Earls represented Ireland calling them home—but rather than treating the story narratively as in the first half, this ‘salmon music’ (which begins with a soft repeating pizzicato-and-winds figure) grows into a meditation on the emotions and meanings in the story, culminating in a renewal of hope and a joyful celebration of the Irish spirit.”
This was a rare occasion to hear an orchestra and soloist perform a piece for the third time in three days, after performances in Saratoga Springs and Troy, NY. Despite the crazy politics and military ineptitude that characterize the event being commemorated, the piece is fairly quiet and invites rumination. The orchestra was flawless in its conveyance of the audience along the Earls’ misguided path, and kept us alert throughout.
Ivan Goff, an All-Ireland champion on the Uilleann pipes, provided colorful flourishes and accents during the orchesral travelogue and then delivered a splendid cadenza of several minutes that seemed to enthrall the whole audience, and the orchestra as well.
Mr. Goff’s vibrant improvisation on this odd instrument, which has greater range and a mellower tone than the Highland bagpipe, more than justified and fulfilled the mission of the composition. McClellan’s composition was neatly set amid the balance of the program - Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, four folk songs arranged by Benjamin Britten, and Haydn’s London Symphony - for an overall British Isles theme.
The uniqueness of the Uilleann pipes made the piece stand apart however, and we would like to see McClellan continue composing along these lines, perhaps toward a symphony with a broader reach of Irish history for the theme and this concerto re-worked as one of it’s movements.
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