The Hugh Lane Gallery has this month added to the perversity of
affliction that can be inflicted on performers. The first concert of
the month, a programme of work by Frank Corcoran (Music for the Book of
Kells and Trauerfelder) and Thom Hasenpflug given by the RIAM
percussion ensemble under Richard O’Donnell, very nearly had to be
cancelled, and in the event Hasenpflug’s Bicksa had to be dropped.
The problem was volume. Percussion pieces are often very loud (the
marking on the fortissimo opening page of Bicksa is “Burnin’!”) and the
level of sound in rehearsal set off the alarm system. The energy
transmitted through the air caused an amount of movement in an
extremely valuable artwork that was sufficient to trigger the alarm.
Turning off the alarm was not an option, as it would have invalidated
the gallery’s insurance policy.