Fortissimo or Pianissimo — that’s the dilemma of devoted concertgoers at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival. Should we holler out its praises to attract bigger audiences or keep it a secret to avoid encouraging crowds that would destroy its special intimate nature. Held annually for the past 20 years in the picturesque village of Bantry on Ireland’s west coast, the festival lasts over a week with excellent musicians from all over the world playing four to five concerts per day and performing not in cavernous auditoriums but in the 250-seat venues of local St. Brendan’s church and the historic library of Bantry House with views past the musicians outdoors to an exquisite garden with an outdoor staircase leading up 103 steps to “heaven” matching the heavenly strains of the musicians performing inside.
Evolved from a set of outreach concerts for the RTE Vanbrugh Quartet, the festival has been organized since its onset by local dairy farmer impresario
Francis Humphreys, who also writes renowned program notes that set each piece in context and guide listeners through the movements and themes of each composition. Some audience members have attended all twenty years and sign up for every concert plus the lectures, conversations with musicians, and master classes. Lucky tourists are astounded to discover such excellence at affordable prices and in a region remote from major concert halls.
Concert setting in Bantry House Library
This year devoted music lovers and lucky tourists listened in rapt silence to a customarily diverse set of programs. Coffee concerts at 11 am featured renowned Swedish soprano Maria Keohane in a Renaissance corset seated at a writing desk with a candle singing “Love Letters” by Monteverdi. Another morning the Signum Quartet paired Mozart’s “Hunt Quartet” with a rousing chase piece by contemporary composer Jorg Widmann which concludes with the anguished wail of the “pursued” cellist.
Post concert bows in St. Brendan’s Church
On various afternoons listeners were treated to tenor Joshua Ellicott singing Ralph Vaughan Williams settings of poems by William Blake, Britten’s hasty Fantasy Oboe Quartet, and a merry rendition of Schubert’s “Trout” Piano Quartet which left the audience smiling broadly.
Bantry House intermission
Main evening concerts featured dazzling emerging virtuoso violinist Alina Ibragimova in a Bottesini trio with a bass and piano. Alina also soloed on a world premiere of “Sonaid bealoidis,” an Irish folk sonata by Ian Wilson who dedicated the piece to her. The Borodin Quartet performed Alexander Borodin’s ultra-romantic string quartet with familiar strains adapted for the stage show “Kismet.” Most nights the main concert is followed by a late great concert played under the Bantry House library’s candlelit chandelier.
Bantry Fair
Between concerts, Bantry is a pleasant locale with noted seafood restaurants, a city library fronted by a replica millwheel. Every Friday the main square is crowded with booths of vendors selling bric a brac, live poultry, potted plants and cheeses, soaps, mussels produced locally.
After two decades, the festival is hoping to expand. While regulars deplore the potential change in character, they can’t rightfully object. So shout out Bravo (!) and plan to attend next year. The West Cork Chamber Music Festival is a treasure to be loudly applauded and shared.
The 2015 festival will be held July 1-9. Bantry House is open for bed and breakfast and house and garden tours from spring to fall. Bantry town is charming all year round.