David Helfgott. Photo / Getty Images
David Helfgott bounded onto the town hall stage on Friday, scampering to the Steinway like a man possessed; an aged, eager-to-please pixie. Having reached the piano, the Australian bounced up and down and spun around, hurling hyper-happy thumbs-up gestures to committed fans.
In the 14 years since the movie Shine
introduced the eccentric pianist to the world, perhaps the legend has dimmed a little; the auditorium was far from full.
Within seconds, sitting among a rapt audience, one quickly realised that musical issues were not what tonight was about. Early on, someone with little understanding of customary concert etiquette tried to set up a round of applause in the sliver between two adjacent crotchets.
Apart from a Kalashnikov-style assault on Khachaturian's Sabre Dance (greeted by "He just had to play that!" from one devotee behind me) the music did not venture from a romantic safety zone.
While there were a few glosses on composer's intentions, particularly in a Liszt Etude, notes were generally present and accounted for. But what was sorely lacking was the mortar that holds these musical bricks together, something apparent from the rather spasmodic flow of the Mendelssohn Andante that opened the evening.
The first movement of Chopin's B minor Sonata, a perilous piece of construction at best, was patched together section by section. There were three speeds to Helfgott's gearbox - fast, faster and fastest - which meant that an unconvincing Largo third movement wilted somewhat.
Only in two Rachmaninov Preludes - the expected favourites in C sharp and G minors - was there a real sense of cohesion. And even here, as happened throughout the evening, Helfgott's extraordinary vocabulary of vocal emissions, ranging from moans and groans to inchoate gabbling, were a disturbing distraction.
Nevertheless, these reservations did not affect the enjoyment of those around me. The audience was transported to nirvana and back, with standing ovations at encore time. By the third encore, a buzz and a whirr through Rimsky-Korsakov's Bumble Bee, Helfgott signed off, apart from a final coy wave from the side of the stage.
