Live Review: The Gloaming

In the hushed darkness of the Opera House’s Concert Hall, a lone voice starts singing in Gaelic. Slowly and quietly a fiddle takes up the call to music, the audience still in rapt silence. Before long, master fiddle player Martin Hayes joins his bandmates to pick up his instrument and across the Concert Hall there is the soft tap of feet quietly keeping rhythm.

If there are two things the Irish are known for, apart from drinking – okay, three things, it’s music and poetry. The Gloaming, a supergroup of traditional Irish and American musicians, have taken the long histories of both art forms from their home and built an electrifying song cycle that makes best use of the five members’ incredible talents.

The two Americans in the group, pianist Thomas Bartlett and guitarist Dennis Cahill take more of a backseat to their Irish counterparts, but Bartlett in particular throws everything into the dizzying exploration of his instrument, playing with his whole body, at times leaning low over the keys, at others, reaching into the body of the piano to mute the strings as he plays the corresponding keys.

Alternating between medleys of traditional marches and reels and the evocative voice of Sean-nós singer Iarla Ó Lionaird, the flawless set relies on the dynamic of fiddle players Hayes and the younger more experimental Caoimhin Ó Raghallaigh. The rapport between the two is unmistakable even before Ó Raghallaigh admits that seeing Hayes perform as a youngster set him on his current musical path.

While the moments when the two work against each other showing off their own individual styles, the night’s most exhilarating moments are when the two fiddles are playing together, bows whipping back and forth, fingers flying over the strings.

And when it’s all over the audience doesn’t hesitate to jump to its collective feet to give these amazing musicians the standing ovation they so richly deserve.