Bertrand Chamayou
Bertrand Chamayou
May 7 and 11
City Hall Concert Hall
Coming hot on the heels of Hong Kong's substantial Arts Festival, the annual Le French May fixture reflects well on the stamina of local arts buffs. The festival now seeps into April and June with a spread of events that extends from gastronomy to fashion, including a good range of musical offerings. It's an enlightened platform for national promotion, assuming that the acts don't let the flag down.
Following some curate's egg performances from violinist Laurent Korcia and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta at this year's festival opener, the young pianist Bertrand Chamayou took to the stage with the orchestra three weeks later, looking as though he might make redress. Concertos by Ravel and Liszt formed the core of the programme.
Although Liszt's Piano Concerto No 1 wouldn't lay claim to being a triumph of intellectual design, its critics might have warmed to it a little more after this performance. Chamayou's technique and tasteful restraint serviced the work's virtuosity without puffing it up to what it isn't.
Orchestra and soloist were less well modulated in Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand with the performance going down an incisive path in preference to playing on the work's impressionistic subtlety.
Chamayou returned to City Hall the following week in a solo recital that again divided the honours between France (Saint-Saens and Franck) and Hungary (Liszt).
Given the rising star's reputation, the architectural grasp of some of the items was surprisingly unconvincing; the playing was over-pedalled in places while his palette of tone and touch ranged from feather duster to more abrasive territory.
The recital opened with Franck's Prelude, Chorale et Fugue and two works by Saint-Saens: Etude en forme de Valse displayed dazzling fingerwork, if limited nonchalance; Les Cloches de las Palmas was delightfully drawn.
Muscling into the advertised programme, Liszt's Les Jeux d'eau a la Villa d'Este made little musical or logistical sense as we were to hear his 50-minute Annees de Pelerinage (Book 2) in the second half.
Or so we thought. The latter had four of the seven movements excised, leaving us with unexceptional performances of the remainder. A first half of 40 minutes, an interval of 30 and a conclusion of just over 25 - diminishing returns, indeed.
