Review: Roy Howat, Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York (From York Press)

Review: Roy Howat, Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York

8:16am Friday 17th February 2012 in Music news and reviews By Steve Crowther

Roy Howat opened this imperious piano recital with Emmanuel Chabrier’s Aubade, capturing the music’s youthful, sunny disposition in a performance of great affection and charm.

What struck me in the later three miniatures was the oddly quirky musical journeys of Caprice and Feuillet d’album, both highly original, impeccably mapped out by Mr Howat with obvious warmth and respect.

But the evening belonged to Debussy. The tone painting in the Reflets dans l’eau was magical with gently hypnotic cascading passages played with utmost delicacy by the pianist. Hommage a Rameau was an impeccably judged performance with the dramatic pacing utterly convincing.

The second half of the recital belonged to Debussy’s Preludes, Book Two.

From the opening enigmatic Brouillards to the closing Feux d’artifice we were treated to an unforgettable display of creativity from a composer and performer at the very top of their game.

I love the fact that these descriptive pieces all have titles, but do not appear until the end of the movements, giving the listener an image to start with but not the performer.

If this was to engender a continuum of freshness and invention it certainly worked here.

All the movements were brimming with insight and the technical delivery was simply jaw-dropping, for example the seemless ostinato whirl shared between the two hands with pyrotechnic musical activity dancing on either side in the ‘fireworks’ finale.

But it was Roy Howat’s ability to illuminate the musical detail as well as the whole that made this a musical experience to treasure.