Sonata in C, Op 2, No 3 - Beethoven
Sonata in A flat, Op 110 - Beethoven
Preludes, Op 28 - Chopin
The Cyprus-born, London-resident pianist Martino Tirimo is now probably bestknown for his involvement in the Schubert celebrations of three years ago. He recorded all of the composer's piano sonatas and his edition of the sonatas (with sensitive completions of unfinished movements) was published in the Vienna Urtext series.
There was no Schubert in his programme at the John Field Room on Thursday evening, the sonatas of late 18th and early 19th-century Vienna being represented instead by Beethoven at either end of his career.
It was interesting to be able to compare Tirimo's style with Hugh Tinney's, heard in an all-Beethoven programme at the RDS on Monday. Tirimo's is the more personal and openly emotional approach, richer in its tonal palette, though at times more than a bit left-hand heavy. Yet it's Tinney's architectural vision which is the clearer. Tirimo is, by comparison, far less likely to impress on you in Beethoven those things that are most distinctively Beethoven's. His overall effect may be warmer, even more genial. But the music sounds less fully itself.
The interpretative idiosyncrasy was even greater in the 24 preludes of Chopin's Op. 28. One of the most unusual features was the frequency with which individual preludes were set in motion with an accelerando, as if the performer hadn't quite the confidence to begin just as the composer had written. The old expressive trick of de-synchronising the hands (playing the left before the right) made its appearance, and there was a fair amount of exciting barnstorming.
But, for my taste, Tirimo came closer to the heart of the music when he relaxed; and, having taken the pressure off, he played some of the less virtuosic preludes with unadorned reflective intimacy.
