Composer: John Kinsella
Performer: Bill Golding, Gerard O’Connor
Orchestra: RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Irish Chamber Orchestra
Conductor: Colman Pearce, Gábor Takács-Nagy
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Toccata
Catalogue: TOCC0242
Release: 2014
Size: 244 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Symphony No. 5, “The 1916 Poets”
01. I. Larghetto – Allegro
02. II. Largo
03. III. Presto
04. IV. Largo – Allegro
Symphony No. 10
05. I. Largo – Allegro energico
06. II. Largo – Andante
07. III. Allegro energico
John Kinsella (b. 1932) is the most important Irish symphonist since Stanford, with no fewer than ten to his credit. Kinsella’s Fifth Symphony, written in 1992, is an impassioned setting of humanist poetry by three Irish poets killed in the 1916 Uprising. His most recent symphony, No. 10, was composed in 2010 for an orchestra of Mozartean dimensions, with the clarity of its textures animated by driving power and energy.
These are live recordings, made at the time of the first performances. The booklet has an extensive commentary, complete with music examples, by Séamas de Barra, who is writing a book on Kinsella’s symphonies for Toccata Press, and a commentary on the origins of the music by John Kinsella himself.
Gerard O’Connor, bass-baritone, has sung with Opera Ireland, English National Opera, Opera North and a number of other opera companies, as well as the Edinburgh and Wexford Festivals and the RTÉ Proms. Bill Golding is one of Ireland’s best-known actors, with a range that takes him from children’s television to Shakespeare. Colman Pearce, a former Principal Conductor of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, is also a pianist and since 1990 has been devoting more time to composition. Gábor Takács-Nagy has been ‘Principal Artistic Partner’ of the Irish Chamber Orchestra since 2013; he is also a violinist, a winner of the Jenő Hubay Violin Competition and a founder-member of the Mikrokosmos String Quartet.