Panayiotis Demopoulos,
born in Greece, has studied in Britain
in recent years and as can be heard
from this well recorded disc has made
considerable progress as pianist and
composer.
The centre-piece of
this varied recital is Beethoven’s superb
late E Major Sonata, Op.109 (my own
personal favourite among Beethoven’s
32), thoughtfully played; but it is
the Liszt which is of particular interest.
Vallée d’Obermann is early
Liszt (published in Paris in 1840 but
revised in the early 1850s), one of
the Swiss group of the Années
de Pélerinage travelogues
and makes enjoyable listening. It calls
for strong and secure technique but
is more than a display piece and has
considerable emotional depth. Even more
stimulating are the three short movements
from the early 1880s which are almost
incredibly forward-looking. Nuages
Gris (Grey Clouds) is appropriately
misty, not merely Impressionist but
in effect atonal; Unstern (Evil
Star) is fiercer, sinister even, but
again of ambiguous tonality while the
tragic La Lugubre Gondola, played
here in what I take to be the second
of its two versions, anticipates Debussy
by maybe two decades. Perhaps all three,
but certainly Nuages Gris are
best programmed with at least moderately
avant-garde 20th century
music (as I recall happening years ago
in one of the Doncaster Museum lunch-hour
concerts I organise).
Nuages indeed
is the starting point to Demopoulos’s
own Tetractys, a set of variations
on a tone row derived from the Liszt
piece. This tone row theme, entitled
Nuages Noir, emerges at the end
of the four well contrasted variations,
the whole taking around eight minutes
in all. The treatment is serial and
though there are traces of lyricism
in the third, slow, variation, the piece
makes few concessions to the average
listener. Nevertheless I will watch
Mr. Demopoulos’s future development,
as a composer and performer, with interest.
Philip L. Scowcroft
see also review
by Patrick Gary
Panayiotis Demopoulos, piano. 
