This recital, of which I was only able
to attend the first half, prompts the question: does a pianist feel
more comfortable playing in front of a small audience rather than a
very large one? In the case of Mr Small’s recital we were firmly in
the territory of the former (indeed, I counted no more than 30 people)
and yet the sense of the pianist’s nervousness was almost too uncomfortable
to bear. This affected his pianism markedly throughout Poulenc’s Suite
Française d’après Claude Gervaise which suffered from
uneven textures, and some wayward pedalling with often clangourous results.
More unsettling was the monochromatic imagery, the quite distinct Poulencian
dramaturgy somewhat delineated in favour of something far less appealing.
Mr Small began his recital with an unscheduled
piece by Federico Mompou, "an aperitif" of sorts, and then
launched immediately into the Poulenc – a mistake, which made those
unfamiliar with the Poulenc wonder when it had started. Mompou’s Charmes
was better co-ordinated, with the disparate elements of the work well
projected. If Pour inspirer l’amour tempted me to think of Molière
it was a short lived temptation for Mr Small’s command of what the keyboard
can achieve in moments of exultation is limited. There were moments
of incandescence, but they were too few to strike this as a memorable
performance.
Takemitsu’s Rain Tree Sketch and
Alberto Ginastera’s Three Argentine Dances were both played
by an entirely different pianist it seemed. The Takemitsu had a compelling,
almost hypnotic, fragrance to it with the swelling of the music quite
literally depicting the rain drops falling from the tree in the work’s
title. Better still was the Ginastera where Mr Small’s sense of rhythm
was perfectly in touch with the South American mantra. Here he displayed
a technique that was fully at the service of his imagination. If Danza
del Gaucho Matrero seemed less like the Latinate rock’n’roll which
Mr Small suggested it might be this was not to the music’s detriment.
There was considerable flair to the playing, but I remain disappointed
that his first half programme did not contain more challenging intellectual
repertoire.
I regretted being unable to stay for the
performance of his own Symphony for Solo Piano a work which The
Washington Post described as a piece "deserving a permanent
place in the keyboard repertory". It may well have altered my opinion
of this recital which frankly was not the revelation it might have been.
Marc Bridle
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