LIVE REVIEWS
City Tribune
October 25th 2002
A Review of Anúna'a concert in St. Nicholas' Church, Galway
Anúna, the Dublin-based chamber choir of Riverdance fame who last Saturday night performed in a packed St. Nicholas' Collegiate Church, is a choir in love with the human voice.
But it is a particular kind of voice, one that, has been stripped down to the bone - embellishments are permitted but restricted to a sprinkling of twists and turns, a la sean-nós style, and vibrato is virtually non-existent - and invested with a haunting quality.
And it is a particular kind of love, one that is fully committed to an exclusive relationship with this style of singing. It was ideally suited to the extensive programme of songs Anúna chose for their Galway concert. These songs ranged from traditional songs centuries old and culturally diverse - through nostalgic ditties like Balfe's I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls; to original compositions from the pen of Anúna - director and founder Michael McGlynn.
Keeping track of the programme wasn't easy. Part of the Anúna style is to limit lighting to candles held by the singers, which made it almost impossible to read the supplied programme. Nor did McGlynn, who introduced each song, stick to the order of the programme. In the end, none of this mattered as similarities in musical style, content and presentation meant that almost every song sounded like a variation of a previous one.
This could have left an overall impression of being pleasantly steam-rolled by music and singing that was enjoyable but unable all the same to leave any mark, had it not been for two things. Firstly, Anúna know how to work a room. (Luckily this didn't depend on McGlynn's easy-flowing pre-song patter, in which he managed to score some laughs and lots of CD sales at the same time).
By arranging and re-arranging the 16 singers around the interior of St. Nicholas Anúna were able to maximise aural and visual effects while simultaneously providing some necessary variety. This style of presentation worked particularly well for the traditional song Jerusalem, where the constantly moving singers set up a sea of vocal echoes across the heads of the audience.
Secondly, McGlynn, who either composed or arranged almost the concert's entire programme, has plenty of imagination when it comes to setting music to a traditional text; be it sacred or secular. He has an ear for soft harmony that can without warning slip into strange waters at a well-placed moment, usually at the end of a phrase or at a strategic point in the text, and can create a myriad of colours and shadows by bouncing the voice of a solo singer off a single, unflinching background drone. Songs like his arrangement of The Flower of Maherally or Siúil a Rúin or original compositions like The Dawn, Sanctus or Innisfree used these tricks to particularly good effect.
The more robust offerings like Fionnghuala, an Irish language tongue twister arranged by The Bothy Band, momentarily lifted the shroud of spiritualism and Celtic mysticism that Anúna can summon without bother.
Carmel Vesey