Funerailles - Liszt
Sonata in C minor Op 13 (Pathetique) - Beethoven
Sonata in C sharp minor Op 27 No 2 (Moonlight) - Beethoven
English Suite No 1 - Bach
Prelude and Fugue in D minor Op 87 No 24
It was interesting to hear one of the unsuccessful contestants from AXA Competition nearly 10 years ago on Friday.
FrancoisFrederic Guy, a 1991 semi-finalist, is now in his early thirties. He stood out then as a thoughtful player and the years have added further depth and maturity to his musical approach.
He opened with Liszt's Funerailles, gritty yet well-mannered, and played with a control and discipline. In the Pathetique and Moonlight sonatas, Guy showed a sure grasp of the music's complex undercurrents, which he conveyed with an enviably uncluttered surface simplicity.
The presentation of Bach's First English Suite was altogether more self-conscious. The pianistic refinement was always admirable, even if the music-making was at times more provocative than persuasive.
As a neo-Bachian tour-de-force the last of the Preludes and Fugues from Shostakovich's Op. 87 didn't quite gell. Some tendencies towards overpedalling showed up and the all-or-nothing demands of the end of the fugue weren't fully yielded to. This seemed but a small glitch where the overriding impression was of a player of rewardingly imaginative bent.
