Bruno Canino (piano)

English Suite No 6 - Bach

6 Sonatas - Scarlatti

Sonata in A D959 - Schubert

The Italian pianist Bruno Canino, now in his early sixties, is best known in the guise of chamber musician and interpreter of contemporary repertoire. As an accompanist he has worked at the highest level, featuring widely, for instance in the concerts and recordings of Itzhak Perlman. And, his piano duo partnership with Antonio Ballista holds a high place in the rankings of ensembles who propagated the music of the post-war avant-garde. At St Canice's Cathedral, Kilkenny, on Tuesday, however, he was heard in an unusually planned solo recital - a first half from the pre-piano, 18th-century repertoire of Bach and Scarlatti, a second half of Schubert's late, monumental Sonata in A. Canino is a tightly sprung, animated presence at the keyboard but in all three composers of his Kilkenny programme his musical approach was of an altogether more objective, dispassionate cast. The essentials of the style were made clear in the plain-speaking matter-of-factness of Bach's Sixth English Suite, which was delivered without lagging or racing.

The contrasts within the group of six Scarlatti sonatas were well gauged and the unburdened cleanness of the playing paid good dividends in this vividly characterful music.

The Schubert, however, suffered from too many touches of everyday plainness, the abrupt shifts of the slow movement blunted by the rigidity of the playing, the outer movements, too, often calling out for a more yielding flexibility. The Scherzo was very nicely done, as was the delightful Scherzo in B flat, D593 No 1, given as an encore.