Pianist’s Return Visit

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31168, 19 September 1966, Page 18

Pianist’s Return Visit

The British pianist, Moura Lympany, presented a recital beford a large and appreciative audience in the Civic Theatre on Saturday evening. The programme was a conventional one, being drawn from works of the baroque, classical and romantic periods and offering little opportunity for a display of sheer technical virtuosity. Of course, this aspect is ever present in the works of Schumann and Liszt, but in the manner of a true artist Miss Lympany offered interpretations which allowed one to consider the music rather than the performer. Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue is a fine work demanding the listener’s full attention. Passages of bravura, darkly rolling arpeggios and enigmatic recitative are a fascinating record of Bach in a very personal improvisatory mood and the three-part fugue maintains a wonderfully controlled tension and forward drive. Miss Lympany made a nice distinction between legato and several degrees of detached playing style to mark many interesting phrases along the way with subtlety. Occasional lapses from strict rhythmic and textual accuracy weire hardly surprising in; the face of frequent bouts of, unrestrained coughing from.

some members of the audience. It should hardly be necessary to point out that the handkerchief makes an effective muffler in such moments of mutual embarrassment.

The Mozart Sonata in C, K 330, was played with admirable control and due care for 'the delicate ease and sim- : plicity which the style re--1 quires. It is an engaging ' work—slight, even by Mozart’s standards, but none the less acceptable on that account. Schumann’s Fantasy in C, Op. 17, allowed Miss Lympany to demonstrate a much wider range of dynamic and emotional contrast. Each disconcertingly brief episode within the first movement was shown in its relationship to the whole, minimising the style of Schumann the miniaturist

The march was suitably buoyant and dashing, though marred by misuse of the sustaining pedal. It may be that this pedal is in need of adjustment; at all events one would not normally expect to hear the cumulative jangle of a whole series of chords at [the conclusion of a phrase. The last movement was at times deeply moving and one could not doubt the sincerity of the performance. In some respects the Fountains of the Villa d’Este, by Liszt, was the most success-

ful work on the programme. The playing was beautifully restrained and a delicate balance between melodic and complex accompanying elements was maintained.

Chopin, Rachmaninov and Dohnanyi were represented in encore material which showed the player to advantage. Miss Lympany’s last visit was in 1948 and one could wish that she had not left it so long before visiting us again. —B.B.