{TABLE} The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba ....... Handel The Trout ............................... Schuhert Fantasie-Tableaux Op 5 .................. Rachmaninov Andantc and variations Op 4 ............. Scchumann Pantomime (El Amor Brujo) ............... de Falla The Green Bough ......................... Joan Trimble Scherzo op 87 ........................... Saint-Saens {/TABLE} MUSIC for two pianos presents distinctive challenges to the players, especially in balancing tone and volume, and in producing tight ensemble. In their first public appearance together, Darina Ni Chuinneagain and Leonora. Carney acquitted themselves reasonably well, despite limitations in their view of some of the music. Their programme, presented on Tuesday night at the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre in Foster Place, Dublin, included some very demanding pieces, plus a few easier, light weight items.
There was much to enjoy, including Rachmaninov's rarely performed Fantasie Tableaux Op. 5. Yet throughout the concert there was little strong characterisation, partly because of a penchant for short term shaping.
Rachmaninov builds enormous phrases from repeated fragments. Both players shaped these fragments decisively, but did not join them together cumulatively; so the broad, romantic sweep was missing. Likewise, Schumann's Andante and Variations Op. 46 takes dialogue between the pianos to extremities; but the switch from one piano to the other tended to sound fragmented. Much of the episodic impression left by Saint Saens's Scherzo Op. 57, however, is the composer's fault. If ever there was anything in which Saint-Saens's facility runs out of control, this piece - fabricated using the "Ah, that will fit" method - is it!
Joan Trimble's The Green Bough and parts of the Schumann showed that these musicians can produce a good cantabile tone. But a hard sound was more common. It was significant that the strongest impression was made by Rachmaninov's "Taques - Piques" movement, which is based on the sound of Russian carillons and in which hard tone did not seem to matter.
