Sophie is top choice for Piano Sunday
HRH Princess Anne with dignitaries. Pic: Fraser Band Photography Starting at a high level there was a clear line of ascent in Sophie Pacini’s recital in the Perth Piano Sunday series in Perth Concert Hall.
Never did this have anything to do with any doubts about her astounding proficiency at piano playing.
She began with three Chopin pieces. The two Nocturnes Op.9 had little microhestitations which spoiled the serene Chopin line and although No.2 had much fine decoration Sophie seemed not quite at home in Chopin. The Op.31 Scherzo had a very dramatic start, but was over capricious as to tempo.
Sophie took fewer liberties with Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata Op.53 and so put over his strength and purpose better. The slow movement, actually headed Introduzione, had an improvisatory start and the darkest piano colour lightening as it merged into the rondo finale, where her gentle start soon blossomed in surges of sound. The second theme was taken a little roughly but the piece ended più presto, prestissimo with nice sleight of hand.
As the programme notes pointed out the Liszt Consolations (of which we heard only two, not the three printed) are really Nocturnes. But here Sophie was much more at home, showing an affinity with Liszt’s soundscapes, making them evocative and natural, even when, as in the second they adopted a Chopinesque sound.
Call it the pinnacle of piano virtuosity or trumpery based on someone else’s themes Sophie’s performance of Liszt’s Réminiscences de Don Juan, courtesy of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, was the most colourful and brilliant pianism and the large audience in Perth Concert Hall reacted with an equaling enthusiasm.
The diablerie of the start was brought out in macabre tritones and a very resonant bass. Là, ci darem la mano was suavely and seductively announced before the incredible digital dexterity of the variations – including a dab at a fugue! Then the storm of octaves for descent into hell and the vivacity of the Champagne Aria.
This high was continued in Sophie’s encore: Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No.6. It had haughty Hungarian nationalist fervour, a smokey imitation of a cimbalom, then put into overdrive for the friss section.
Fantastic piano playing and a real crowd pleaser.