Lord Salisbury's Pavan - Gibbons
Sonata in F minor Op 57 (Appassionata) - Beethoven
Reflections II - John Kinsella
Sonata - Bartok
Novelette in F sharp minor - Schumann
Sonata in B minor - Liszt
The Hungarian pianist Balazs Reti (born 1974) made his third appearance in Dublin at the John Field Room on Wednesday night. His first was last October when, at the age of 22, he took the top prize in the 1996 European Union Music Competitions for Youth Competition ahead of Dubliner Finghin Collins and Swede Joakim Anselmby.
Last May he played in the Guardian Dublin International Piano Competition, but failed to progress beyond the first round while Collins sailed past him to reach the semi-finals. In the context of a full-length solo recital, Reti showed freshness in his programme-planning, opening with one of the gems of Elizabethan keyboard music, Orlando Gibbons' Lord Salisbury's Pavan and including an impassioned Novellette by Schumann as well as John Kinsella's Reflections II.
It was in the Schumann piece Reti made the strongest impression. The pathos of the Gibbons eluded him and he failed to mould the Kinsella into shape. His handling of the three major sonatas also suggested that his strongest identification is with music of the romantic period. ok.
