Oleg Marshev at the Town Hall Concert Chamber

By WILLIAM DART

In a last-minute programme shuffle, Oleg Marshev opened his recital with Liszt's Funerailles. It was a sharp move.

Written to commemorate the thwarted Hungarian revolution of 1849, Funerailles is Liszt at his most politically and musically persuasive.

Even though the occasional octaves weren't always what the composer intended, Marshev had a keen sense of the drama of the piece, especially in its eerie premonitions of a Mahlerian funeral march.

Liszt's Opus 1 studies certainly live up to their name of "Transcendental" and are a waiting graveyard for flash-bound virtuosos. Marshev may not have been technically flawless, but he was able to penetrate beyond mere notes into the deeper poetry of the music.

Harmonies du Soir shimmered with rapture and the shifting moods of Ricordanza were most affecting, catching all the delicate sentiment of a piece that Busoni once likened to a "bunch of faded love letters".

Of the two more extrovert etudes, Vision came off best: a thrusting, inevitable soundforce.

After interval, Brahms' Opus 39 waltzes were not so convincing. Marshev's intense, very Slavic emotionalism, did not always work for these essentially Schubertian miniatures.

There were revelations (in one he seemed to stress hints of symphonic themes to come) but they were no compensation for rubato that sometimes threatened to subvert three time into two.

It takes a special pianist to tackle Prokofiev's mighty Seventh Sonata.

Marshev's fingers know this work well, and the Russian delivered it fearlessly.

In the slower moments, especially an Andante that indeed was caloroso, Marshev's pedalling and voicing made for total emotional engagement.

As for the demonic finale, if Mephisto was given to midnight troika rides, this would be the perfect musical backing.

The Russian pianist was mightily generous with encores for his appreciative audience. First up was some sparkling Rachmaninov, followed by another dip into Liszt's Opus 1 (a truly transcendental F minor study).

A teasing, tinkling waltz from Emil von Sauer was a reward for those who know Marshev's splendid recordings of this composer's works - and ample instigation for others to investigate them - while the evening wound up with a brilliant and brazen slash through Khachaturian's Sabre Dance.