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Reviews

Review of piano recital by Otis Prescott-Mason

17 June 2022, Anzac Hall Featherston

At the end of a wild wet week a recital of romantic piano music was a real treat. Otis Prescott-Mason, a gifted student from the New Zealand School of Music, began with Schumann's Arabeske in C. Schumann wrote it when he was desperately longing for permission to marry his love, Clara Wieck. The postlude says it all.

Next came two movements of Beethoven's Sonata No.28, written while the composer was on holiday in Baden taking the waters and walking among pines . Prescott-Mason's lyrical phrasing in the first movement, especially in pianissimo passages, was exquisite, the dotted rhythms of the March impeccable.

Meticulous technique and strength are required for the wonderfully patriotic Polonaise in F# minor by Chopin. Both were at Prescott-Mason's command for the pounding fortissimo octaves of the two polonaise sections. His playing would certainly have got the toes of the Polish emigrée princess for whom Chopin composed this work tapping – she may even have danced!

The Russian composer Scriabin wrote two Impromptus (Op.12) in 1894. The dynamics of the second, in B♭ minor, were beautifully managed and led to a thrilling fortissimo ending. The final work was part of Liszt's response to his reading of Dante's Divine Comedy (Après une lecture du Dante – Fantasia quasi Sonata) a work in two main parts which describe the soul riding down to Hell (with strong, descending tritones representing the devil) and the gentle, shimmering joys of heaven, with a dramatic finale rumbling to a conclusion.

The enthusiastic audience was given a generous encore - a fresh blast of Mozart, with Sunny Cheng joining Otis Prescott- Mason. Another splendid concert in this series.

Marion Townend

Marion is on the board of the Martinborough Music Festival and plays violin and viola in the Martinborough String Quartet/Quintet


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