The first week of the “classical” music section of the Rye Festival concentrated largely on the piano. This pianofest came to a joyous conclusion in St Mary’s on the Thursday evening, with a wonderful two-piano concert by perhaps the world’s leading piano duo of Peter Donohoe and Martin Roscoe. They both have very distinguished solo careers, but have played as a duo for more than forty years; even so, their performances were as fresh and crisp as anyone could wish.
Beginning with Variations on a Theme of Beethoven by Saint-Saens, the two revelled in the ingenious composer’s seemingly unending ability to draw new moods, tempi and surprises from the great man’s original, beautifully simple idea, before playing what is almost a signature work: Mozart’s Sonata in D for two pianos. The performance was dazzling, but not virtuosic in a showy way and, in order to verify the idea that this work makes people feel better, it was only necessary to look around St Mary’s to see the grins on the faces of the audience.
Some appropriate musical gruffness intervened in the Variations on the St Anthony Chorale by Brahms, but this magnificent work is always uplifting and brought the first half to a splendid conclusion.
The programme notes told us that Rachmaninov dedicated his Second Piano Concerto to his therapist, an amateur musician, and much of his music contains deep emotional turbulence. This cannot be said of the Suite No.2 for Two Pianos, which, as the programme also told us, is “assertive, bold and confident right from the start”. Donohoe and Roscoe made a simply splendid job of this and did the same for the intriguing and enchanting Grainger Fantasy on Themes from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.
The very last piece from Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite as an encore completed a wondrous evening of piano artistry. This concert will not just make all those who hear it feel better, it will keep them in a good mood for at least three weeks!
Photo: Kenneth Bird