VLADIMIR Ovchinnikov possesses a masterly technique and can play with both power and delicacy, so the demands of Liszt's Sonata in B minor only spurred him to the finest playing of the evening. He opened his recital in the Larkin Theatre DCU with three short and light hearted pieces by Nikolai Rubinstein they may have been challenging technically but they offered him no scope for poetic feeling.

What a complete change of atmosphere came with Rachmaninov's too seldom heard variations on a theme of Chopin. Each variation, one might say, displayed a fresh aspect of this composer's melancholy as well as of his fecund imagination, and Ovchinnikov varied his approach to match. One would not have guessed, from the Rubinstein, that he could conjure up such depths of feeling but he rose to the challenge of the music.

Liszt's Sospiro formed a sort of transition from the relaxation of the interval to the performance of the sonata. Familiar as this work is I yet hung on every note and marvelled at the careful placing, at the balance of tones, and at the way each section was joined to its successor. A sense of structure was omnipresent, but it was joined to a sense of surprise, making this one of the most gripping performances I have ever heard.