Francois-Green Piano Duo at the Dome Studio, 14 May 2014

The lunch-time recital brought a packed audience to the Studio Theatre for a programme which was both beautiful and challenging. Combining Mozart and Schubert with Berg was potentially risky but in the event completely justified.

The duo opened with Mozart’s F major sonata K497 and brought to it overtones of Beethoven as well as a lighter touch which harked back to the early 18th century. The opening movement’s development section constantly strains at the limits of baroque form and seems to yearn for greater flexibility. As if this was all too much for the composer, the Finale seems tongue-in-cheek in its lightness. 

Wozzeck is not a work one would automatically associate with the piano, and extracting the interludes and moulding them into a single movement may seem an unlikely task. That it proved so successful was as much to the credit of the composer as to the subtlety of the arrangement. Berg’s writing is so lyrical that it sweeps all before it. There were strong hints of Rosenkavalier in the opening sections, a point I can’t recall when in the opera house, and throughout the lyrical beauty out-ways any potential difficulties with the notation. The duo obviously delighted in the work and we can only hope it may be taken up by others.

The final work was Schubert’s Fantasy in F minor D940. The contrast was almost too great. Here was lyrical beauty combined with sublime melodic creation. It came close to wallowing at times, but never tipped over the edge.

For a worthy encore they played a brief contemporary Hungarian work where gentle flutterings helped an otherwise indeterminate structure. But the best was left to last with a magnificently sensitive and very gentle rendition of a Bach chorale prelude arranged for four hands. Its simplicity of approach was masterly.