Joanna MacGregor in recital
City Hall Concert Hall
Reviewed: Mar 8
Selling a two-hour programme of intensely spiritual piano music without an interval will probably be one of the Arts Festival's tougher challenges this year. Even so, Joanna MacGregor's performance of Messiaen's Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jesus played to a full house (although the number of students was probably due more to cheap tickets than musical curiosity).
That said, the audience were treated to a rare 20-movement work played in its entirety and given the chance to savour the interlocking levels of Messiaen's cosmic collage of sound. Sadly, grasping any meditative expression of his underpinning of faith was impossible, given the teenagers' constant fidgeting and talking.
Not that the adults behaved well either, some taking their seats 40 minutes after the start.