Ceol Rince Ros Mhic Threoin (2009)
This concert and the festival had a surprise ending: a specially-written piece for three pianists on one piano by composer Eric Sweeney. Imagine Arvo Part meeting jigs and reels and you have the gist. It was a little gem, just like the festival itself (Dick O'Riordan - Sunday Business Post)
EAs a special goodbye, and what a parting gift, three pianists – Finghin Collins, Antti Siirala and Sunwook Kim, premiered a special commissioned Eric Sweeney Ceol Rince, a jig, but what a jig – this four minute piece had the excitement of a Riverdance. In the presence of the composer, it was a parting gift to treasure and look forward to hearing again.
(Munster Express)
ORCHESTRAL (selected reviews)
Granard (2004)
Eric Sweeney's new RTE commission for the RTE National Symphony Orchestra marks the 20th anniversary of the death of Anne Lovett…….Sweeney's minimalist-patterned 'Granard, a memorial,' is a gentle piece, an expression of sympathy from one individual to another rather than any kind of grand statement about the issues involved. William Eddins's performance with the NSO on Friday was careful to respect the music's quiet understatement.
(Irish Times)
Three Pieces for Orchestra (1998)
It is typically present-day Sweeney music, accessible and agreeable.
(Irish Examiner)
Despite the characteristic issues with scale, some beautiful scoring and intriguing rhythmic patterns ensured that these pieces held one's attention
(Irish Times)
Concertino for Trumpet and Strings (1993)
The high-point of the evening was the performance of Waterford based composer Eric Sweeney's Concertino for Trumpet and Strings… A triumph for Eric Sweeney and Mark O'Keefe.
(The Munster Express)
Dance Music (1989)
The visit of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to Ireland for three concerts this last week has been important enough as an event, but when the orchestra decided to commission a work by an Irish composer the significance of the visit became much greater. Eric Sweeney's Dance Music proved to be a delightful piece. One can see the influence of the minimalist school of Adams or Reich in the rapidly repeated patterns of sound and something of Aaron Copland in the dramatic outburst in the score. However the music has its own true personality and communicates its joyful sequences with great assurance.
(Sunday Tribune)
Dance Music is about 15 minutes long, easy on the ear and full of rhythmic invention. It will do well at the Proms.
(Irish Press)
…a lithe and sinuous piece, of fascinating rhythmic variety developed by asymmetric stresses on a basic jig-time and with subtle orchestral colouring.
(Irish Independent)
…an innovative experiment, a first venture into Oirish minimalism, giddily compacting ceaselessly overlapping fragments of an Irish jig into a busily moving yet static framework.
(Irish Times)
Symphony no.2 (1987)
An important, 25 minute piece in three movements and displays Sweeney's clear ability to handle large orchestral textures in a very assured manner. The earlier parts have some Stravinskian overtones….but the most successful section is the finale. This is a catchy, rhythmic piece with decidedly South American overtones which work splendidly in his clever orchestration. It is a work which demands another hearing which I hope we will be granted in the near future.
(Sunday Tribune)
Circles for orchestra (1985)
Musical history is full of great works that made less impact on first hearing. They (The Dublin Baroque Players) can be proud to bring it to Germany and France. For me, at a first hearing the first movement was a matter of getting my bearings. The second movement stabilised me. The third, when I knew where I was, was just elation.
(Irish Times)
Eric Sweeney's 'Circles' shows he has overcome the seemingly chaotic cul-de-sac of modern music….Music, construction and geometric pictures unite in a vision of sound, whose basic timbre seems to reach into the spheres, in a world no longer governed by man.
(Badische Zeitung)
Sweeney is one of Ireland's most significant contemporary composers…music of ethereal melodic beauty. (Lahrer Zeitung)
The work was particularly well received by the audience.
(Le journal de Gien)
Toccata for orchestra (1981)
Eric Sweeney's Toccata was a great delight, evoking the mystery and majesty of the seventeenth century. Sonorous strains of Monteverdi crept through a twentieth century platter, giving it a quality not far removed from Stravinsky's late works. I think that even the most ardent of the 'anti-twentieth century club' would have warmed to this one.
(Waterford News and Star)
Eric Sweeney's Toccata made an excellent fanfare after the interval. He treats tunes from 'Orfeo' in an exciting modern way, while keeping also their Monteverdian character and phrasing. We ought to hear it often.
(Irish Times)
Symphony no.1 (1977)
A significant work….the music sounds aptly written for the orchestra and the writing for trombones and tubas sound as idiomatic as that of Holst…Eric Sweeney is surely at heart a romantic with a fine sense of vigorous rhythm and true musical individuality. The material of the symphony, its putting together and the total effect were stimulating and convincing. It deserves more performances and quickly!
(Irish Times)
HIS OWN MAN.
Listening to his symphony ….one was at once struck by the apt use of modern language and cliché. Sweeney is his own man, and seems to be working his way quietly towards a goal.
(Hibernia)
ORGAN MUSIC (selected reviews)
Three Pieces from the Mass of St Patrick (2006)
A brief selection from the Mass of St Patrick, which had been
premiered and broadcast from St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin on St
Patrick’s Day this year was especially wonderful and exciting. It is
always a treat to hear new work in the presence of the composer but to
have the composer actually play the selection is high heaven indeed.
(Munster Express, 14 September 2007)
Three movements from his recent Mass of St Patrick blended minimalist
practices with French organ showmanship. He delivered them with spirit
and energy.
(Irish Times, 23 August 2007)
Le Cercle de Lumiere (1999)
It combines an ostinato idea inspired by Bach, contrasted sections, and the repetition techniques of minimalism. These give it that sort of catchy appeal which is the special preserve of character-piece composition for the organ. I would be surprised if other organists do not take up this piece.
(Martin Adams-Irish Times)
Circle of Light CD
Sweeney is clearly a musician steeped in all schools of music…. I found myself looking forward with pleasurable anticipation to virtually all the music on this well-balanced and texturally varied CD….. The accompaniments and organ pieces demonstrate just how fine the new organ is: quiet colours are beautiful and choruses are clear and sweet-toned. Eric Sweeney's neat and persuasive playing (and, of course, his compositions) provide a delightful taster of the ability of this organ to make music. I shall look forward to more from Eric Sweeney's capable pen.
(Organists' Review)
Adventus (1998)
Eric Sweeney's Adventus was a much more piquant offering, built up to insistent scalic passages, interrupted by angry chords, which contrived colourful metamorphoses while remaining recognisable. Harden gave a sympathetic performance.
(Douglas Sealy-Irish Times)
The Bright Seraphim (1994 rev.1999)
…written by Eric Sweeney for his brother, and in which a rhythmic moto perpetuo - now in one part, now in another - sustains an increasingly complex discourse across the texture.
(Martin Adams-Irish Times)
Eric Sweeney brought excitement to a dismally wet summer evening…..His organ playing is always a joy and add to that his own composition, The Bright Seraphim, and you had an occasion of fireworks and pleasure. Eric Sweeney is coming into a much freer, more entertaining period in his compositional work and a recent Lyric FM programme on his work showed just how influential a modern composer he is. The Bright Seraphim was as urgent as rock 'n roll and as colourful and exciting. The yellow environs of the cathedral seemed to be filled with a ticker-tape of music as if in an electric storm, the summer darkness opened into a brightness as images burst like fireworks in your head.
(Munster Express)
Processions (1981)
It is an exciting piece and conveyed Eric Sweeney's virtuosic capabilities more than the rest of the programme and certainly provided a rousing end to this rather unusual recital.
(Celia Donoghue-Irish Times)
Eric Sweeney's Processions, sounding French in inclination but with the emphasis on rhythmic gesture rather than harmonic language, sounded rather more solid in achievement.
(Michael Dervan-Irish Times)
CHAMBER MUSIC (selected reviews)
Walk/Don't Walk (2002)
Eric Sweeney is a most distinguished composer whose music is too little heard, at least outside Ireland, so that it is always nice to be able to hear some fairly recent work of his. This is the case of his trio /Walk/Don’t Walk/, “a piece in which the different melodic lines all follow certain shared parameters but respond in different ways” (Eric Sweeney). The piece opens with a “walking” ostinato with the flute providing some melodic material. The music briefly halts, muses and moves on again, the melodic material changing hands. The basic material is somewhat repetitive, but by no mean minimalist. This is a delightful work and a most welcome alternative to Debussy’s ubiquitous sonata.
(Hubert Culot, Classical Music Reviews, Music Web International)
Walk/Don't Walk (2002)
Triocca's selection and treatment of works from Irish composers Philip Martin and Eric Sweeney is marked by the way they always pursue substance over style with regard to new music.
(Lyric fm, Lyric releases)
Walk/Don't Walk (2002)
……More continuous energy was manifest in Sweeney's Walk/Don't Walk, for flute and harp, in which the rhythmic impulse of an aerobic walk was so persuasive, not to say hypnotic, that the few abrupt halts, obeying the instruction "Don't Walk" hardly disturbed the onward flow.
(Douglas Sealy-Irish Times)
Three pieces (1999)
…..the fine work of Eric Sweeney was a jewel in the coronet of music……The final piece by Eric Sweeney just blew me away with its vitality, its exuberance, its dancing tunes that trickled and pulsed through three sections for piano, violin and cello. The most commercial of the evening, it was wonderful. I felt carried along on a stream, able to bask in a backwater of tranquillity and then race on to a delightful climax. Striking and sexy stuff. Go Eric, Go! this is the way to go. I went home elated. It was for me the best, the highlight of an interesting week.
(The Munster Express)
BrianBoyDell (1997)
The specially written musical tributes….were overwhelmingly tongue-in-cheek….Eric Sweeney's punchy toccata was the brightest and best of them.
(Martin Adams-Irish Times)
Eric Sweeney was a pupil of Boydell and his tribute piece -BrianBoyDell -was a fitting highpoint of the evening.
(The Munster Express)
Eric Sweeney played his own BrianBoyDell, the capitalisation divulging the musical cyphering of the piece. This is a sharp and witty 80th birthday present that's a lot more carefree than any of Boydell's own humerous undertakings.
(Michael Dervan-Irish Times)
String Quartet (1996)
Like much of Sweeney's recent music, this four-movement work uses techniques developed from minimalism. These include fluctuating ostinatos and textures built of overlapping small motifs which can expand by the addition of notes and by varied repetition….Sweeney's quartet has many well crafted features…I found Sweeney's second movement the most convincing for it seemed sustained by a progress inherent in the ideas.
(Martin Adams-Irish Times)
The Moon-Cradle (1995)
Eric Sweeney's song cycle The Moon-Cradle sets poems by Padraic Colum with unashamed nostalgia; the composer must have enjoyed revising Irish folk modes for his two central poems….The work was an unexpected but pleasing jeu d'esprit.
(Douglas Sealy-Irish Times)
The Moon-Cradle is simply wonderful. I could almost hear Padraic reciting his own poetry, so perfect are your cadences. BRAVO!
(Dr.Mark Malkovitch 111, General Director, Newport Music Festival, Rhode Island)
Duo (1991)
I first played Duo about five years ago and I have also recorded it. I love the composer's combination of minimalism and Celtic music which gives the work a lovely feel throughout.
(Gerard McChrystal-Vale of Glamorgan Festival)
CHORAL (selected reviews)
Hymn to Gaia (2009)
The premier of a substantial piece of new work - Hymn to Gaia - by Eric Sweeney was the highpoint and achievement of New Music Week. This significant body of work....underlined the calibre and contribution of Eric Sweeney as a composer of first rank.
Structured like a Mass - a Mass to the world with Kyrie, Gloria, Interlude, Sanctus, Agnus Dei and Requiem, it uses a range of cultural symbols and religious to establish a new take on the fragile biosphere we call Earth.
Eric Sweeney conducted and I was lost in admiration. (Munster Express, 26 March 2010)
Eric Sweeney's Hymn to Gaia celebrates the wonders of the created universe and the divergence of human life ..... his piece is almost a wake-up call for us to look after the beauties of the created world. He uses texts from all the main religions, and from poets such as Gerard Manley Hopkins and Walt Whitman. (Arminta Wallace, Irish Times 11/3/10)
Music and the environment
Sweeney's new eco-friendly composition is scored for choir, soloists and narrator. The work is conceived as a musical expression surrounding nature and how we care for it. The opening movement is almost like a plea for our failure in respecting and cherishing our planet, and the second movement is a celebration of life and vitality in nature. (www.galwayindependant.com)
Niamh of the Golden Hair (2004)
…a lyrical setting of an Irish myth with a retelling of the story by Anne Farrell to a text and music by Eric Sweeney. This is a big confident work, over twenty minutes long….memorable uplifting music with a fine connective pulse of voice and plucked strings with wonderful brass interludes.
(Munster Express)
Missa Brevis (1986)
Sweeney has noted that his compositional style changed after his Second Symphony (1985-1987) as he moved towards a more 'traditional' use of tonal centres. This move can be clearly heard in the Missa Brevis (1986) which is our main interest.
Sweeney mentions minimalism, particularly Reich, as having a definite influence on his compositional style. Whilst this is clearly heard is his use of repetitive figures the influence of Flor Peeters is just as prominent in the way he develops melodic fragments and builds chords from modal scales. It will be no so surprise that this immediately invites a comparison with Benjamin Britten's /Missa Brevis/ (1959) not only in the similar forces involved but also in the canonical writing and the independence of the organ part. There are significant differences however; Sweeney's work is slightly longer, lingering over passages of the text which the Britten work, by comparison, makes a rather perfunctory, almost indecently hurried, setting. The organ part in Sweeeny's setting would seem to be more accessible to the average organist.
Recent Latin Mass settings for these forces are relatively rare and Sweeney's /Missa Brevis/ deserves to be heard much more frequently.
(Jubal's Review, A Review of Latin Sacred Music,
/A review of music written using Latin texts in service of the liturgy of the Catholic Church encompassing music written in all periods with a concentration on contemporary composers. July 15th 2010)
Deise Dei (1983)
…Eric Sweeney, compositeur de cette oevre et brillant chef de chorale. Les superbes voix des solists dialoguant avec le choer ont chanté l'hymne a la vie que représente cette messe qui exprime la lutte à survivre entre la culture et la langue ancienne et les exigencies de la vie moderne. Après une vision horrifique d'un holocauste nucléare, la musique gaélique symbolise la renaissance et l'espoir d'une nouvelle vie.
(Presse - Ocean)
Eric Sweeney avait écrit et dirigeait lui-même l'oeuvre Deise Dei; les voix superbes des solists et des choeurs exprimaient les préoccupations de notre époque, la peur aussi d'une disparition sournoise de nos cultures. Oeuvre sérieuse donc, mais l'auteur garde l'espoir d'une renaissance. Sa musique exprime cette espérence en empruntant aux vieux thèmes de la musique gaélique.
(Vivre a Saint Herblain)
Scored for chorus, two pianos and percussion, this is the largest and most difficult of the works….It's about 30 minutes long and avant-garde in style, with demanding solo parts for soprano and baritone. It has atonal and aleatoric elements, as well as some folk elements.
(The Atlanta Journal)
Five Italian Songs (1972)
…the imagination behind Eric Sweeney's songs were all pointers to the future. Last year it looked as though this composer had the vocal touch; it still does, and it will be interesting to see how he develops it.
(Kenneth Loveland-The Times)
ORGAN RECITALS (selected reviews)
Christ Church Cathedral
For over seventy minutes at Christ Church Cathedral Eric Sweeney gave
a virtuoso performance and received a standing ovation in a venue that
doesn’t do ovations.
It was Organ Symphony No.5 by Widor that rocked up the aisle and
transported the audience. It just got better and better….it was like a
Pink Floyd concert, full of attack, changes of key and style and a
glorious showbizzy occasion.
No wonder the audience gave Eric Sweeney a noisy standing ovation….. a
very very special occasion.(Munster Express, 14 September 2007)
Composer Eric Sweeney can be relied on to produce highly individual
programmes when he presents himself as an organ recitalist. Here he
juxtaposed works of his own with pieces by Charles Ives, Phillip Glass
and Olivier Messiaen.
Sweeney responded as well to the strange dissonances of the first as
to the broad humour and irreverence of the second (Ives: /Adeste
Fidelis/ and /Variations on America)/. He delighted in the wallpaper
patterns of the finale of Phillip Glass’s /Satyagraha/.
Sweeney is the Irish composer to have adopted minimalist practices
with greatest enthusiasm. The pieces of his own which he offered, /The
Bright Seraphim, Adventus/ and three movements from his recent /Mass
of St Patrick/ blended these practices with French organ showmanship.
He delivered them with spirit and energy.
(Irish Times, 23 August 2007)
Summer Sounds at Lunchtime, National Concert Hall
The National Concert Hall’s Summer Sounds at Lunchtime continued with
shapely melodising from oboist David Agnew and solid accompanying from
composer-organist Eric Sweeney.
With Sweeney’s own organ solo /Le Cercle de Lumiere/, inspired by the
2001 solar eclipse, a strong attachment to the tonic chord kept
tension in abeyance until the brilliant conclusion.
The invigoration was more sustained, however, in the percussive
clashes of the /Postlude/, part of a Mass Sweeney recently composed
for St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.
(Irish Times, 27 August 2007)
Virtuoso Bach
There can be great joy in true virtuosity. All too often one has had to hear it from people for whom it is a substitute for music, but when it is used by an intensely musical player....it can give exhilaration and joy...everything was crystal clear, every slight note audible, every note in its perfect rhythmic place....he made the sun shine on a grisly wet day.
The whole impression of the recital was that he was more a master of that particular instrument than anyone we have yet heard upon it.
(Irish Times)
....a Bach programme which blazed with energy and real musical intelligence. Rarely do organists have the built-in rhythmic discipline of other instrumentalists or an indefatigable sense of style...Mr Sweeney has both.
(Evening Press)
Eric Sweeney ended this recital with a new work of his own. It is an exciting piece and conveyed Eric Sweeney's virtuosic capabilities more than the rest of the programme and certainly provided a rousing end to this rather unusual recital.
(Irish Times)
Eric Sweeney gave a most impressive account of himself on the organ of St. Mary's last night...a feeling for style, a controlled technique and that evasive quality which is called temperament.
(Evening Press)
Mr Sweeney started the evening with Bach's Chorale Prelude "O mensch bewein dein sunde gross" and the second trio sonata. He played both with great sensitivity….Mr Sweeney returned to the organ with, first Jehan Alain's "Le jardin suspendu" which continued the descant timbre, but with delicately poised dissonances…Finally Guillemant's third sonata, vigorously played.
(Irish Times)
….the musician triumphed in overcoming all obstacles in a beautifully phrased and artistic performance of the last of a set of six Sonatas, originally written for pedal harpsichord.
(Evening Herald)
Peeter's highly chromatic style does not always appeal to me, but this work (Sinfonia, op.48), full of brilliance and strong climaxes, had a lot of excitement, much of which obviously came from Mr Sweeney's enthusiastic advocacy and his ability to get so much power and variety out of this three-rank extension organ.
(Irish Times)
Waterford New Music Week 2003
The best performances went to the most florid works……Eric Sweeney capturing vividly a cheeky streak in Wilson's output, which almost amounts to nose-thumbing. The playing masked the work's technical demands so that the music spoke with a careless-seeming airiness. (Michael Dervan, Irish Times)
Eric Sweeney brought excitement to a dismally wet summer evening…..His organ playing is always a joy and add to that his own composition, The Bright Seraphim, and you had an occasion of fireworks and pleasure. Eric Sweeney is coming into a much freer, more entertaining period in his compositional work and a recent Lyric FM programme on his work showed just how influential a modern composer he is. The Bright Seraphim was as urgent as rock 'n roll and as colourful and exciting. The yellow environs of the cathedral seemed to be filled with a ticker-tape of music as if in an electric storm, the summer darkness opened into a brightness as images burst like fireworks in your head.
(Munster Express)
Circle of Light - CD
Sweeney is clearly a musician steeped in all schools of music…. I found myself looking forward with pleasurable anticipation to virtually all the music on this well-balanced and texturally varied CD….. The accompaniments and organ pieces demonstrate just how fine the new organ is: quiet colours are beautiful and choruses are clear and sweet-toned. Eric Sweeney's neat and persuasive playing (and, of course, his compositions) provide a delightful taster of the ability of this organ to make music. I shall look forward to more from Eric Sweeney's capable pen.
(Organists' Review)
