Erik Reischl at the School of Music

By HEATH LEES

Everything that Erik Reischl does at the piano speaks of instinctive genius. Utterly at ease and brimming over with charm and professionalism, this young performer - not yet 30 - demonstrated a remarkable talent on Sunday evening in a grand-stand programme that included four of Chopin's large concert pieces, a late Beethoven work and Prokofiev's torrid Seventh Sonata.

Reischl, whose list of awards and prizes is as long as his arm, seems to relish performance, yet there is nothing showy or mannered about him.

But what pianistic gifts. He has a right hand that can sprinkle magical ripples down the keyboard and make Chopin sing like an Italian soprano. His left hand is rock-steady and unerringly accurate. And his pedalling, naturally warm and supportive, never threatens the music's clarity.

Despite his virtuosity, Reischl's musicianship is impressive. It would be easy to label him as just another technically marvellous wonder-child but the playing is too musical for that.

And yet ... there are things that work against him. Perhaps it's the fact that too much brilliance over a whole evening becomes tiring for an audience more overwhelmed than moved.

The Prokofief performance was stunning, yet it seemed spooky that he could emerge from the furnace of its finale with hardly a hair out of place. And in Beethoven's music, although the effects were riveting, the sense of a gradually emerging horizon didn't come across as it might have.

But these quibbles do not belittle a performance of stature and insight.