{TABLE} Sonatina ............................ Berkeley Airs de Ballet D'Ascanio ............ Saint-Saens Sonata No 2 Op94 .................... Prokofiev {/TABLE} IT IS good to encounter young musicians who have a feel for chamber music. In their lunchtime recital at the National Concert Hall's John Field Room on Friday, Maryanne Ryan (flute) and David Brophy (piano), eschewed the usual mid day formula of trifles in which the flute repertoire abounds in favour of two largish works, which sandwiched just one trifle.
Unlike some more experienced players, Maryanne Ryan understands that her part sometimes is secondary to the piano and David Brophy knows how to project his more important material where appropriate. The result was a nicely scaled discourse, Ia which neither player fell into the trap of over projection.
The most well rounded performance was of the opening piece, Lennox Berkeley's Sonatina, a work where Poulenc meets Hindemith to create pleasing, albeit insubstantial, music which has something engaging for both players.
It was nice to hear the piano part shaped distinctly from that of the flute, and Brophy was especially good at this in the programmes single trifle, Saint Saens's Airs de Ballet D'Ascanio.
The one serious limitation in the recital lay in the tendency of both players to adopt a uniform style throughout the programme. The polished but rather genteel shaping heard in the Saint Saens and the Berkeley was not so appropriate in Prokofiev's Sonata No2, which has a rugged and muscular aspect which this performance seemed deliberately to evade.
