Alexsander Madzar @ Auden Theatre, Gresham's School, Holt.

Alexsander Madzar @ Auden Theatre, Gresham's School, Holt

By Frank Cliff

Thursday's recital presented a welcome first opportunity to hear this pianist and I doubt if many of the audience were disappointed by the change to his advertised programme. Like myself, most were so captivated that they would have been content to listen to him perform anything.

In fact, a programme of works ranging from the baroque to the romantic showed him to be an artist of top calibre.

This was immediately apparent from his impressive reading of Beethoven's six Bagatelles Op 126, for these exquisite miniatures produced perfectly-controlled playing of great sensitivity.

In contrast, Pletneb's arrangements of movements from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker ballet provided a brilliant vehicle for virtuoso displays.

In two sonatos by Domenico Scarlatti, Mr Madzar demonstrated the expressive advantages the piano has over the harpsichord without ever overstepping the boundaries of authenticity.

Schumann's Carneval concluded this memorable recital.