BACH PIANO RECITAL : PETER DONOHOE
9th July 2006 7.30pm St John's Church Code: 0916 Author: Ann Burgess
The last time I heard Book 1 of the “48” played live was by Peter Williams, the eminent Bach scholar, on a harpsichord at St Cecilia's Hall in Edinburgh , nearly 30 years ago.
So, I approached Peter Donohoe's piano recital at St John's Church with great interest: how would it compare?
Despite his high-powered international career, Peter Donohoe's pre-concert talk revealed him to be a modest, unassuming, approachable person, quite disarming in his honesty. He spoke of the history of mean temperament, Bach's demonstration of equal temperament, and, off-the-cuff, discussed problems of interpretation and answered questions from a fascinated audience. As Mr Donohoe said, critics, who complain about the use of a modern piano for playing Bach, miss the point that this music is so great that it transcends instrumental boundaries.
The audience greatly enjoyed the ensuing recital, helped by the excellent programme notes. Mr Donohoe's technique was, as always, enormously impressive. The memorising of the whole of the first book of 48 preludes and fugues is a gigantic task to set oneself,
and probably far harder than memorising a concerto, because of all the different movements, each with its own complex contrapuntal textures.
Mr Donohoe is most renowned for his playing of nineteenth and twentieth-century music, and there were moments when later repertoire seemed to inform his playing of the Bach, the eighth and twenty second preludes owing something to Grieg in Holberg mood, and the very dark, antique, fourth prelude dramatically building up to Lisztian proportions before fading to its final cadence. The amazing nineteenth fugue seemed to foreshadow Shostakovich.
What variety there is in this Bach! Mr Donohoe demonstrated beautiful simplicity (preludes 13 and 14), and brilliant, breathless toccatas (preludes 5 and 15). Occasionally the tempi were so fast that they left the listener's ear behind (fugue 9) and chromaticism was almost thrown away (fugue 10). However in the sixteenth fugue there was a wonderful clarity as entries unfolded, leading to a magnificent stretto. Sometimes (Prelude 21) the Steinway sounded like a harpsichord, crisp and rhetorical, and there was a superb transparency of texture in the twenty-fourth prelude with its detaché bass line.
When an encore was demanded thirty years ago, Peter Williams brought the evening full circle by re-playing the C major prelude, that had begun the cycle. Tonight Peter Donohoe somehow found the energy to play three more or less virtuosic movements from the G major French Suite.
We look forward eagerly to Mr Donohoe's other contributions to the Frome Festival as the week progresses. Friday's recital and the Liszt Concerto are not to be missed!
Welcome to Frome, Mr Donohoe!
Ann Burgess
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