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Antony
Peebles at the Hilton Ballroom last Sunday (23rd March 2003) gave a very
“Peebles” concert – his programme encompassing the kind of works
that he has a predilection for – Romantic Period works that call for
virtuostic techniques and showy flamboyance.
So
it was an afternoon of rapid ripples of notes, fistfuls of chords and
every kind of convoluted runs and arpeggios.
There
was a lot of Liszt – the piano transcription of Schubert’s song “Die
Forelle”. “St. Francis Walking on the Waves” and “La Campanella”
for an encore.
There
were also more delicate demands from, for example, Schubert’s Impromptu
in A Flat and Schumann’s “Widmung” and “Fruhlingsnacht”.
I
thought the best delivered piece that afternoon was Ravel’s “La Vallee
des Cloches” taken from ‘Miroirs’. There was a well thought out
depth and control of tone in this, and myriad colours coaxed out from a
piano that wasn’t very co-operative. This piece had the introspection
and molded lines that it needed.
The
Opus 111 Sonata by Beethoven is not heard very often – the menacing 1st
movement and the sublime 2nd which was delivered with some
brave and nicely done pedaling in the last variation.
It
was a very demanding programme and always difficult for any performer to
marry both technical control and musical passion and beauty of shape.
There was some poetic sensitivity especially in the middle section of the
Chopin G Minor Ballad and the opening of the Schubert Impromptu in A Flat.
As
usual, Mr. Peebles introduced his works with interesting insights and
anecdotes. This always bridges the distance between the performer and his
audience.
It
is quite about time Kuching tries to get a proper concert auditorium with
a proper piano for recitals. It is quite annoying when pedals stick or
dampers do not work – causing painful sustained tones that are not
supposed to be there. At this recital, the pianist even had to stop in the
middle of a piece to stand up and manually push some dampers back to
position. By the end of the concert, the whole tuning of the piano was
also down a quarter-tone from when it started.
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weyihui@pc.jaring.my