John Chen at the Auckland University Music Theatre

By WILLIAM DART

The remarkable 17-year-old John Chen is still an honours student at Auckland University and his Sunday night recital gave him the opportunity to air some new repertoire after winning the Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition in Brisbane last year.

The programme opened with Mozart's elegant D major Sonata of K284 and the first movement had all the buzz and anticipation of an operatic overture. A touch of rubato in the second subject hinted at the special highlighting that cadences would be given in the slow movement to follow.

This Rondeau made much of the composer's capricious dynamics, just as the Finale revelled in Mozart's daring changes of textures and octave work. The tempo here bordered on the giddying but never did one feel a lack of control, and Chen captivated with his beautifully modulated melodic line in the Adagio cantabile variation.

In the first movement of Chopin's B minor Sonata, Chen balanced the brilliance of its Maestoso with the soaring sostenuto theme, although the brutal chromatic shifts of the Development needed more time to register.

After a whirlwind of a Scherzo, with Chen nimbly attending to the subtle voicing of its middle section, the Largo was as much nocturne as solemn march.

The Finale, alas, didn't quite heed the composer's "non troppo" warning and a perilous Presto took its toll in the final page.

After interval, Beethoven's E flat Sonata Op 31 no 3 was neatly played, although one missed the repeats in the Allegro and, overall, there seemed a certain lack of gravitas.

Humour seemed more appropriate in the skittish Scherzo and a scampish Finale that threatened more than once to run away with itself.

Bartok's fiendish 1926 Sonata is a challenge that few local pianists would take on and Chen's stormy rendition, with powerful, ringing octaves, had all the power that Joanna MacGregor's sadly lacked in the Town Hall Concert Chamber last year.

After the Sonata's furious final pages, pummelling the audience into willing submission, two encores came as an act of unexpected generosity. The first - a measured Brahms Intermezzo, vibrant with all its inner rhythms - was particularly welcome. A Chopin Study, for all its elan, suffered from too many ruffles where there should have been ripples.