Darragh Morgan: Spin: New Music for Violin & Orchestra from Northern Ireland
Resonus Classics

If Irish violinist Darragh Morgan's latest release is any indication, Northern Irish contemporary music is not just alive and well but thriving. With the violinist partnering with the Ulster Orchestra and conductor David Brophy, the smartly curated Spin presents four fiercely imaginative works for violin and orchestra written expressly for Morgan by long-time collaborators Bill Campbell, Brian Irvine, Ryan Molloy, and Frank Lyons. Northern Irish musical heritage and traditional classical structures are drawn upon, but the music on Spin, all four pieces world premiere recordings, is in no way constrained by geography or the past when the composers present vivid works emblematic of their distinct personalities.

The personnel involved in the project is distinguished. Morgan's performed widely in numerous contexts, is a founding member of Fidelio Trio, and has recorded more than seventy-five chamber music albums, many of them award winners. Like the violinist, the Dublin-born Brophy's worked with many a world-renowned musician and conducted many a world premiere. The 1966-founded Ulster Orchestra acquits itself admirably throughout the seventy-minute release and supports Morgan tremendously in the process.

Recorded in September 2025 at Belfast's Ulster Hall, Spin opens with the single-movement violin concerto Swim by the Belfast-born Campbell (b. 1961). Inspired by a true story about a summer sea swim off the Cork coast that began promisingly but nearly ended tragically, the fifteen-minute work unfolds across three fluidly connected sections, including a violin cadenza at its centre. The music exudes a dreamily rhapsodic character at the outset that hardly hints at the dangers to come. Morgan plays with authority alongside the orchestra in this scene-setting episode and impresses as much when the activity level intensifies and tension sets in. Alternating between lyricism and agility, the soloist calls on his virtuosity as the tide swiftly turns and the swimmer has to make a desperate grab for land and safety. A satisfying impression of unity's asserted when the bucolic tone of the opening reinstates itself to usher the work to a peaceful resolution.

Irvine (b. 1965), whose oeuvre encompasses operas, oratorios, film scores, and orchestral, ensemble, chamber, solo, and dance works, is represented by the two-part À mon seul désir (To my sole desire). The idea for the piece emerged following a visit to Paris's Musée du Moyen-Âge to view the medieval work Lady and the Unicorn. Whereas five of its six tapestries deal with the senses, the sixth displays the titular words. In keeping with its romantic character, Irvine's setting explores ideas of possession, attraction, repulsion, and domination, with the violin and orchestra entangling fiercely and the soloist embraced, ensnared, and engulfed in turn. The aptly titled “With a big life embracing energy” movement explodes in a firestorm of blustery gestures, the orchestra volcanic and the soloist furious in the staccato flurries of his attack. While its title might suggest a calmer presentation, “Distant and still” begins as agitatedly as the first movement when the music roils with barely contained fury; things do, however, gradually settle down when the music grows calm and meditative in its closing minutes.

Drawing on his background as a traditional Irish fiddler and pianist, Molloy (b. 1983) is influenced by both contemporary and traditional musics. Consistent with that, his three-movement Violin Concerto updates ancient categories of traditional Irish music as it progresses from melancholy expressions to frenzied reels. The generally tumultuous character of Irvine's piece carries over into the “Goltraí” movement of Molloy's but for a few moments only. Quickly enough, the music takes a solemn turn when a long soaring statement by Morgan glides across an orchestral foundation that's both queasy and quasi-mystical. After percussion and piano details introduce the aromatic “Suantraí” movement, the focus shifts to Morgan's violin as it determinedly wends its way through sleepy terrain. An abrupt change in tone occurs with the advent of “Geantraí” and its riff on traditional Irish reel-playing. Dance-inspired animation grows increasingly frenzied as the movement advances, but the soloist meets the challenge handsomely.

At album's close, we have Spin 3 by Lyons (b. 1964), who's been Dean of Research and Innovation at Ulster University since 2017 when not establishing himself internationally as a composer. Lyons' twenty-minute concerto takes the boldest plunge into electronic waters when amplified violin couples with real-time processing in a piece dedicated to the memory of Darragh's poet father Tom. As contemporary-sounding as it is, the work adheres in some respects to the traditional concerto in featuring showcases for the soloist and dynamic passages for the orchestra's sections. Ten concise, contrasting parts appear that alternate between ones featuring the soloist and ensemble. Portentous rumblings, whistling harmonics, pitch shifting, and pizzicato string gestures intermingle in a flow that's ever-mutating and unpredictable yet always arresting. Morgan's at his most florid and adventurous in the work, though that shouldn't be construed to suggest he's not the same throughout the release.

July 2026