By WILLIAM DART
From the opening flourish of his D major Partita, Henry Wong Doe made it clear that this was Bach for the piano, with ringing, magisterial chords and sweeping demi-semiquavered gestures.
Yet, for all the beguiling beauty that this talented young pianist drew out from Bach's shapely lines, the
metrical moorings were not always secure. The languorous melodies of a leisurely Allemande, stretched out to almost nine minutes, did not always fall within the stipulated bar-lines.
The Courante, which segued rather alarmingly from the final chord of the Allemande, was spirited to the point of flashy; the final Gigue glittered under Wong Doe's fingers but needed more tonal finesse with its phrasing, particularly when the left hand introduced the second section.
Wong Doe ascended Ligeti's Devil's Staircase for us last year, in recital at Auckland University, and it was a galvanic experience. This time around, alas, the Hungarian composer's Etude seemed too bumpy and nervy for comfort, and was dispensed with alarming brevity.
After interval, Chopin offered ample solace. Two Nocturnes chosen by Wong Doe were the composer's least well-known, the only ones that introduce themselves forte, and far from the salon fodder that Chopin is still libelled as writing.
Opus 55 no 2 features a soaring line over a restless undercurrent of chromatics; Opus 62 no 1 nods to Schumann and, in its final page, pre-empts Debussy. Apart from one curious modification of Chopin's line in the second piece, Wong Doe did both full poetic justice.
Henri Dutilleux's 1948 Sonata has become a calling-card for this pianist; he dazzled us in Auckland two years ago with it, and it hasn't lost its gleam. If Rachmaninov had joined up with the French composers of Les Six he would have written music like this and Wong Doe's seasoned, dramatic performance displayed the sort of pinpoint accuracy that Ligeti had needed earlier in the evening.
An encore of Scriabin's B flat minor Etude Opus 8 no 11 was alluring in its simplicity. Wong Doe relaxed with playing that was unaffected and straight from the heart. It was a revelation that could have been repeated.
