Greg Anderson and Elizabeth Joy Roe stand for a new breed of piano duos, performing with a razzamatazz that makes Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim seem decidedly old school.
Anderson & Roe certainly drew the punters in Auckland, although we were denied the Mozart, Brahms and Stravinsky mentioned in local
publicity. The sole substantial repertoire was a shimmering Hallelujah Junction by John Adams, still fresh in some ears from the soundtrack of the movie Call Me By Your Name.
This was the launch of a voyage to transcendence, we were told, but hopes were dashed when the pair moved from two Steinways to one for Anderson's own variations on Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. I struggled to hear the influence of "otherworldly late Beethoven" in its bland harmonies and doodling trills. The so-described avant-garde dueling gospel of the Beatles' Let it be was a flashy showpiece that, for me, trampled the very soul of the song.
The evening opened with their own recasting of Leonard Bernstein's Prelude, Fugue and Riffs, in which stomping feet and less audible hands-on-piano-case percussion didn't compensate for the tang of the original clarinet and orchestra.
Also marking Bernstein's centenary, a suite from West Side Story was burdened by a welter of heavy bass rumblings and enough glissandi for a Guy Fawkes celebration.
