Breaking the sound barrier

For composer Ailís Ní Ríain, hearing loss is a complication but not an obstacle to her creativity, as she explains to Claire Jackson

- Claire Jackson

An off-beat, percussive phrase splinters, the fractured sound intertwines, notes weaving up and down the compact keyboard. Its bell-like timbre and focused range veils the complexity of the piece: though scored for toy piano, there’s a serious note to the playfulness. Ever since John Cage wrote his 1948 Suite for the instrument, composers have embraced the smallest keyboard’s sonic possibilities. Whereas Yann Tiersen associates the toy piano with childhood in the score to the French film Amélie, others such as George Crumb revel in its celestial tone. In Soberado, Ailís Ní Ríain combines both elements, drawing on the instrument’s characterful sound as well as the performative aspect – there’s something very engaging about a musician huddled over a tiny piano like the Peanuts character Schroeder. The piece becomes increasingly frantic, driven by nagging, insistent repetition. ‘It’s my attempt to echo the frustration and rigour you have to apply to a life of sobriety,’ says Ní Ríain.

The toy piano is typical of Ní Ríain’s unusual approach when it comes to timbre. Parambassis, an extended call-and-response piece, is scored for bass clarinet and recorder; Consent #7 is for bass clarinet and bass flute; Don’t features bass clarinet and cello. The choices are practical as well as aesthetic – while Ní Ríain can hear the bass clarinet, she can’t always hear the recorder. ‘There’s a sense of presence and absence,’ she observes.