PIANO RECITAL : PETER DONOHOE
14th July 2006 7.30pm Memorial Theatre Code: 1407 Author: Alan Burgess
Peter Donohoe has made talking to audiences a feature of his residency over the past week. We gained useful insights to his programming at Friday night's pre-concert talk at The Memorial Theatre. He also told the audience that one of the benefits of a residency was that the performer is able to share the breadth of his repertoire across a series of concerts, rather than be confined to just one, resulting in performances through the week from Bach through to Messiaen. His talk also revealed much about him as an unassuming, personable, northern gent who could probably chat into the wee small hours to the extent that he almost needed to be dragged off stage a few minutes before 7:30 in order to get changed. One wonders how and where Frome will feature in his pre-concert talks of the future.
The concert opened with a Mozart Sonata, K331, probably the piece which was most familiar to the audience. It was also familiar to a cleaner who overheard him practising the final movement at a concert hall one day and called out ‘Hey that's been nicked from my ringtone!' The opening was very clean and precise, entirely classical in that respect, but as the variations unfolded he imbued the music with touches of gentle romanticism, indicating to me where his true heart lies. The middle movement was particularly effective, with a fine sense of rhetoric and a beautifully paced trio.
The second half opened with a Prelude and Fugue by Shostokovich. Harmonically this was quite austere music, brushed across a vast canvas. The opening was strong and Bach like, and in the fugue, after its wistful exposition, there were many moments of extreme delicacy before its defiant close. This was an arresting performance and made me wish for more of the same but Peter had decided to programme two large Romantic pieces at the end of each half.
The two major works were the Schumann Fantasy in C and Brahms F minor Piano Sonata, neither of which is frequently heard repertoire. For my ear, he seemed most at home in the reflective cantabile sections, with well voiced treble melodies over rippling accompaniments, though there were flashes of magic such as the fiery passage in the first movement of the Schumann which, like a waterfall, cascaded downwards through a most effective diminuendo into the bass register. Both pieces were technically very challenging and, on occasions, such as the end of the Brahms, he triumphed with virtuosic athleticism.
It was interesting that so few took his advice from the pre-concert talk and moved upstairs to seating which seemed almost on a level with the keyboard and, acoustically, gave an excellent auditory vantage point. Maybe the best treat of all was the encore, Schumann's Arabesque, intimate salon music, perfectly shaped and communicated, leaving a great sense of warmth and contentment in the listener.
Alan Burgess
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