16 June, National Gallery Dublin: Rossini, Petite Messe Solennelle

“…the tension between sacred and operatic in this sometimes bizarre but deeply, often winsomely heart-felt music was rarely far from the surface in Thursday evening’s performance, the opening of the 12th Pipeworks Festival…”

18 June, Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin: Mannheim Hochschule Kammerchor

“…the technical security of the singing…and the sheer finesse of the delivery were a consistent pleasure.”

20 June, National Concert Hall, Dublin: Swingle Singers

“Monday night’s concert at the National Concert Hall—which was part of the 2005 Pipeworks Festival—was sub-titled “From Bach to Beatles”, a throwaway bit of alliterative labelling which comes nowhere near to doing justice to the extraordinary diversity that the group presented. …I found myself hoping that they were genuinely having as much fun as they appeared to be having…in what was the most entertaining event I’ve attended this year.”

21 June, Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin: Finals of the Dublin International Organ Competition

“Programming is one of the challenges of the Pipeworks Competition. Sixteen players from 12 countries, including Ireland’s Mark Keane, made it through to the second round. Then and in the finals, the competitors chose their own programmes. …The winner, by the jury’s unanimous choice, was the Norwegian musician Guttorm Edvin Guleng…He was my choice too, for nobody matched his differentiation of styles ranging from baroque stylus phantasticus to the romantic excess of Karg-Elert’s Passacaglia and Fugue on BACH. Four 40-minute programmes made for a long evening. However, sustained quality was attested by the fact that when the jury’s decision was announced, time seemed to have flown.”

22 June, Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin: Luigi Tagliavini, organ

“It’s 25 years since the first Dublin International Organ Festival. Under a catchy new name, the 12th one has maintained high standards of artistic imaginativeness. This year’s jamboree brought several world-class artists to Ireland for the first time, among them veteran Italian organist, Luigi Tagliavini. In music by his Baroque compatriots Corelli, Pasquini and the Scarlattis, Christ Church Cathedral’s organ glittered with the unparalleled sparkle for which his touch is so justly famous. This was rare playing that turned every phrase, every detail, to poetic effect.”

24 June, National Concert Hall, Dublin: Festival Gala Concert

“The festival closed with a gala concert at the NCH with Gerhard Markson and the RTÉ NSO. …Jongen’s demanding solo part [in the Symphonie Concertante]…passed to an undaunted Peter Sweeney, who played it with aplomb. …In the Ravel-like slow movement, Markson hit on a perfect sarabande tempo at which there flowed some exquisite tonal matching from the woodwind and a cool cantabile from the violins. …Like Janácek’s other late works, the Glagolitic Mass roams through virgin territories of sound whose ways are impressively obscure. With a confident team of soloists …Markson led the orchestra on a campaign that brought home some…of the work’s reckless thrills. There was white heat…in the two organ solos played by Mark Duley, the festival’s artistic director. To him also goes the credit for drilling a scaled-down yet remarkably adept RTÉ Philharmonic Choir, who were supremely unabashed by the music’s strangeness.

Andrew Johnstone, Irish Times, 27 June