Intermezzi Op 117 - Brahms
Sonata in C Op 2 No 3 - Beethoven
Five Pieces from Romeo and Juliet Op 75 - Prokofiev
Piano Sonata No 2 (1931 version) - Rachmaninov
DAVID McNulty, a pupil of Hugh Tinney at the RIAM, emerged as out of nowhere to take the top prize at last year's inaugural Blacktie National Piano Competition. Even now, nearly 12 months on, he has yet to register a real presence in the rounds of student lunchtime recitals. Instead, on Wednesday, he launched himself in at the deep end with a full evening recital, promoted as part of his Blacktie prize by Dublin Master Classes.
There is about this young man's playing a cool and considered quality which sets him quite apart from most of his Irish peers. It's not that either the dash or bravura which can be so tempting to a player flexing pianistic muscles are either alien to him or beyond his reach: there were flights of virtuosity in his Prokofiev and Rachmaninov that made his attainments in attack and velocity evident for all to hear. No, it's that there's an interesting quality of reflection which keeps the music both in control and at a controlled distance.
In spite of this, he seemed most at home in the torrential writing of Rachmaninov's Second Sonata. He has an easy way with this music's swirling, wafting patterns, its decidedly non-contrapuntal layering, its need for ready flexion in heightened melodic presentations; and he showed also a nicely light foot on the sustaining pedal. He has that knack of allowing Rachmaninov to dictate, as it were, his own time, not strictly bound by beat or bar-line, in a way that paradoxically clarifies what can otherwise sound cluttered and emotionally over-done. On Wednesday, his Brahms and Beethoven were less rewarding, leaving the composers' particular musical needs not so accurately addressed. And he seemed to view the Prokofiev too much as if it were original piano music rather than a transcription, conceptually bound in part by the nature of the orchestral original. At all times, however, he played with a command and purpose which mark him out as a player to watch.
