John Luxton piano recital

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33819, 16 April 1975, Page 23

John Luxton piano recital

Yesterday afternoon, in i the Ngaio Marsh Theatre, Mr John Luxton played two Sonatas by Scarlatti, Bach’s ‘ltalian Concerto,’ and a Sonata in One Movement by Michael Tippet. The last work was commissioned for the Edinburgh Festival in 1962. There could be speculation about the two further customary movements being pruned through Caledonian canniness.

Mr Luxton’s playing always compels interest. It has a core of solid technique always on ready demand causing technical problems to yield to superior force and pressure.

In the Scarlatti there was a clarity which is so necessary in giving life and shape to the music, and Mr Luxton gave plenty of vitality without letting it become larger than life. The two were interestingly contrasted.

Dramatic fervour marked' : the playing of the first and last movements of the Italian Concerto. Here again crisp and clear touch brought lout the full meaning .of he music without distortion and without overstatement. There was exhilaration in I the rhythm which never was clouded. The middle moveIment sang serenly. The Tippet Sonata began i acrimoniously, the harsh dissonances, played with dramatic frenzy and snap, were, ■countered by delicate and wispv little fragments of.' meditative and reflective, motifs.

All these were repeated' iseveral times without any] seeming development. This isj perhaps strange, for Tippet' certainly does not lack) ■ ability to say plenty and say it well. —C.F.B. [