Isabelle O'Connell, Piano. The Hugh Lane Gallery.

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At noon today, Isabelle O’Connell, one of a next generation of Irish musical stars, played a short one-hour concert in The Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin’s Parnell Square. The Royal Irish Academy of Music graduate played a programme of Debussy, Boulez and Messiaen.

The Debussy piece, “Images, Set 1”, written in 1905, is a three part piece, each part being in a very different style. The piece was characteristically Debussy and she played through with a light, beautifully fluid touch.

I had sat at the back of the hall in an aisle seat in order not just to listen but also to gain a clear sight of her execution of the pieces. As the audience gave an appreciative round of applause, the two gentlemen beside me started discussing their plans for the next night. They clapped with everybody else, but had to talk above the applause that they might hear each other. This sort of meaningless chatter makes it very difficult to digest any sort of performance. Sure enough, they talked volubly right up until the first note of the next piece, and again through the break before the third piece. This blatantly boorish (and unfortunately increasingly common) lack of consideration is distracting for other members of the audience and is downright discourteous to the performer.

Useless prattling aside, the Boulez piece followed. This is a composer with whose music I had no familiarity. The introductory text read of a five-movement piece, of which only two movements have been published. The structure of the work, allowing (indeed encouraging) a fluid construction of each performance (described as “opening the work’s structure to aleatoric elements”!) suggested a vague, abstract piece. As only two of the movements have been published, the piece has never received a complete performance (save from Boulez himself). By the time Ms O’Connell finished the two published movements, I was grateful that the composer was keeping the rest to himself. The piece, in which there were occasionally some interesting sections of movement and harmonic sequences, consisted, in the main, of long pauses interspersed with strident thumps of single notes. Personally, I found the piece irritating and impossible to resolve. Whilst experiments with form and structure can be academically interesting, these pieces can make onerous demands of concert audiences. She took her bow and the pair beside me started babbling about bus routes and telephone bills.

After Boulez, I was grateful for the Messiaen piece- the tenth movement “Regard de l’Espirit de Joie” from “Vingt regards sur l’enfant Jesus”. This piece, performed with great style and affection, consisted a series of grand and harmonically interesting cadenzas that ebbed and flowed engagingly from start to finish. The piece was rhythmically unusual and certain sections resolved to musically satisfying disharmonies, giving this lovingly rendered piece a gratifying charisma. The audience loved it and applauded heartily at its’ conclusion. Ms. O’Connell got two curtain calls, through which my neighbours discussed wash-up liquids and tyre pressures.

This pianist, a performer of great zest and confidence, emphatically rewards the attention of her audience. Her opening piece was wonderful. Her second piece was difficult, but the pall it left was quickly cleared by a virtuoso performance of the closing Messiaen. I would unhesitatingly recommend that anybody interested in solo piano see Isabelle O’Connell in performance. Today’s concert was another accomplished triumph for the Hugh Lane Sunday lunchtime concert series.