Fantasy in F minor D940 - Schubert
Variations in A flat D813 - Schubert
Sonata in F minor Op 34b - Brahms
The National Concert Hall's four-concert Schubert/Brahms series got off the ground last night with a programme for two pianists, John O'Conor and Philippe Cas sard. They played duets (two players at one piano) by Schubert and a duo sonata (each player at his own piano) by Brahms.
Odd as it may seem, the two halves of the evening presented chamber music at its extremes. When else on a concert platform do two players get as physically close to each other as in a piano duet? And when can you find a duo as widely separated as in the enforced distancing of standard two-piano layout?
The impression of one voice, one mind is comparatively easy to achieve in duet. Tightness of ensemble alone is a major challenge for a piano duo.
O'Conor and Cassard struck an interpretative path of unfussy plainness that minimised the obstacles to tight ensemble - no uncalled-for gear-changes, no uncalled-for rubato. And, as each player in his own right has a track record for responsiveness and sensitivity in chamber music, the results were generally pleasing.
O'Conor, the gentler musical spirit of the duo, took the top part in the opening Schubert Fantasy and Cassard, with a wider dynamic range bringing both more assertiveness and a greater facility in receding without being unheard, sat at the treble in the set of Variations. The Fantasy - haunting, stormy, vivacious - is the finer piece; the Variations, given with all repeats, and glorious in moments, didn't always sustain interest consistently. The single work of the second half, Brahms's Sonata in F minor, is better known as a quintet for piano and string quartet - a version for string quintet as well as this two-piano version were rejected on the way to the final masterpiece.
O'Conor and Cassard made a strong and vibrant, well-knit case for the piece in two-piano form. And, while working in a medium that can by no means rival the clarity and contrasts of the composer's last thoughts, they managed to provide a high degree of illumination into the typically dense Brahmsian inter-leavings.
