Packed DLWP for Festival of Music

Dr Brian Hick writes: “Tzu-Yin Huang is a formidable and engaging young pianist, whose approach to Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto brought clarity and excitement to what can too easily be a romantic wallow.

The slow, powerful, slightly ominous opening demonstrated the authority she can command and the weight of sound she can rouse from the De La Warr’s piano.

She seems to have an instinctive ability to unite clarity of phrasing with innate passion, thus attacking the ear and mind at the same time. It was enthralling and I am only sorry I did not catch her winning performance at the Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition.

The evening had opened with a finely articulated reading of Smetana’s Overture to The Bartered Bride.

The acoustic is always a problem in the De La Warr Pavilion but seemed somewhat better on this occasion, though there is still a real disparity between first and second violins where the first are outside and the second within the proscenium. The brass and wind seemed to carry better but this may simply have been the choice of works which were better suited to the building.

Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony is a favourite of Brian Wright’s and he brings a loving attention to detail as well as letting rip where needed. The second movement had an intense melancholy which verged on depression, with the horn solo seemingly in another world, far removed from those of us in the hall. The fury of the final movement seemed at times to tip over into madness and this was totally convincing – there is, after all, not a long way between this manic-depressive state and the desolation of the end of the Sixth Symphony.

A wonderful evening – thoroughly enjoyed by a packed house.

I know these events are very expensive to mount but surely Bexhill could run to them a little more often?”