Donald Satz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>As far as his music goes, there's nothing wrong with Donohoe.  He's an
>excellent pianist who has reaped some fine critical reviews.  I would
>hesitate to consider him one of the greatest of the century, but he is
>much better than his public image; I think EMI has done a poor job of
>representing him.

I used to (well, actually, I still do) have a very fine impression of
Donohoe's playing.  He has indeed made very many fine recordings, save for
a couple of mishits here and there, like the Prokofiev War Sonatas on EMI.

Sadly, the one and only time I've heard him in recital proved to be
extremely disappointing.  He was here in 1997 as one of four pianists in
a 4-day Piano Festival, which also featured Hamelin, Demidenko and Piotr
Anderszewski, who all matched up to the very high standards they themselves
have set based on their previous track record.  Donohoe's recital, OTOH,
not only failed to match up to his usual standards, it actually turned out
to be quite an embarrassing affair.

I wrote a review which was published by the local newspaper, The Straits
Times, the following day:

   International Piano Festival 1997
   Peter Donohoe, piano
   Wednesday 9 July, Victoria Concert Hall

   LIONEL CHOI

   After three consecutive nights of consistently good performances, it
   was a real pity that the fourth and final instalment of this year's
   Piano Festival had to be a disappointment.

   And ironically, it attracted the largest audience. The most likely
   reason must be that Manchester-born pianist Peter Donohoe chose a
   programme of mostly familiar works.

   He started off beautifully in the first movement of the opening work,
   Mozart's eminent Sonata in A, K.331 - poised and cultured, with a
   clear melodic line singing throughout, and a very judicious use of
   rubato. It was a balanced and gimmick-free view that was civilised
   without reducing the music to porcelain fragility.

   The third variation, in the relative key of A minor, was a particularly
   fine example of how a Mozartian tragic utterance should sound like.

   But it was too bad that these good things had to come to an abrupt
   end at the last variation, which ended up as a virtuoso exercise for
   Donohoe. A hard-pressed race to the finish line at a very quick tempo,
   phrases, though crisply articulated, ran breathlessly from beginning
   to end, and were not even allowed a moment of respite in the final
   six bars.

   I have never heard the ensuing minuet of the second movement played
   so fast and with such contempt. The famous Alla Turca finale, however,
   went well enough.

   After having made a mess of half of Mozart's masterpiece, Donohoe
   turned to butchering one of Beethoven's most heroic sonatas, the
   Waldstein, Op.53.

   Actually, it was all rather impressive technically. But alas, Beethoven
   means far more than just immaculate running passages and precise
   fingerwork. Besides a fluent keyboard technique, one needs consummate
   musicianship, something that Donohoe seriously lacked here. Furthermore,
   I mourn at the lack of concern for detail.

   Stretching and compressing tempi and phrasing at will, liberal
   fluctuations in dynamics, heavy fortissimos - all these are hardly
   ways to achieve that special incandescence in the first movement.

   The second movement had nice poise, but I detected a pervading sense
   of routine. And in the finale, he missed exploiting the atmospheric
   music's subtle tonal and textural colours. The contrasting sections
   of the rondo were executed with panache, although the second one was
   just too overpowering in its relentless vehemence. The quick coda
   was very impressive, but alas, it had come a little too late.

   Things worked a lot better after the interval in Chopin's Sonata No.3
   in B minor, Op.58. The strong-fibred musician in Chopin emerged
   strongly in the monumental first movement, although Donohoe tended
   to ramble quite a bit.

   The Largo was the movement that finally brought out the true genius
   in Donohoe that we were straining to hear before this.  There was a
   wonderfully deep calm and a romantic yearning.

   From then on, he remained in form.  The Liszt items, "Venezia e
   Napoli" from Annees de Pelerinage II, were superb, culminating in an
   electrifying Tarantella that was full of extrovert brilliance, verve,
   flair and diabolic impishness.

   For his only encore, Donohoe explored the sounds of Javanese gamelan
   music in Debussy's "Pagodes" from Estampes, albeit in an artificial
   and unduly agitated fashion, bringing the concert and the four-day
   festival to a not-so-sweet close.

Lionel Choi
Singapore
http://www.singnet.com.sg/~lionelc/dummies.html