Tuen Mun's rustic audiences are never easy to please, but French pianist Pascal Roge mixed the ingredients to lull even this medley of babies, teenagers and musical neophytes into an appreciative hush.
Eschewing the over-dramatic, Roge restrained himself with elegance and eloquence to woo his audience. With the two French works (actually three, with a Satie encore), this was exactly what was needed. For Beethoven's Appasionata sonata, such fastidious playing was like de-clawing a tiger. It was safe playing, but the essence should be its danger. The Beethoven at its best can be played with belligerency, urgency, even a Germanic pomposity. Roge seems too civilised a pianist to be drawn into such primitive emotions. Instead, he centred the first movement around that tender second theme rather than that furious main theme.
The second movement variations were more to his liking. But the finale became a mere galop until he whipped up the frenzied coda. If that was disappointing, Ravel's Sonatine showed Roge in his most civilised element. The 18th century-style piece was played with a kind of tip-toe sonority, at times virtually imitating the virginal. This was a music of transparency, the rhythms precise (albeit with some over-long pauses), the beautiful arabesques of the final movement gracefully phrased, immaculately fingered.
The last half was devoted to the Debussy book one Preludes, 12 miniatures which form their own multi-chromatic tapestry.
Again, Roge approached the preludes with that same hushed respect as the Ravel. Here, though, he diversified his sonorities, etching the contours, even augmenting some with a quirky humour.
Both Minstrels and Puck's Dance were given the ironic treatment, while Winds On The Plain showed Roge's whirlwind technique. But if one piece exemplified Roge at his best, it was Footsteps in the Snow. Quiet, intense, careful, its surface beauty barely masking a mysterious inward drama.