Performance: Henry Wong Doe

School of Music

Review: Heath Lees

We are lucky to be able to hear talented young New Zealand pianists when they come back to Auckland from time to time.

The present "Purely Piano" series will showcase Chenyin Li and Stephen De Pledge later this year, and last night Henry Wong Doe took time off between United States graduations and world piano competition entries to play to an appreciative audience back home.

As ever, Wong Doe's strength is in the flamboyant, theatrical pieces, which he plays with intensity and drive, yet - a sign of continuing maturity - there is enormous control and care underpinning even the most colourful effects.

This was most evident in Albeniz' Malaga from the suite Iberia, and in the brilliant Sonata opus 22 by the Argentinian composer Ginastera; a work with rumba-like rhythms and pungent folk-melodies - Stravinsky meeting Bartok on a joyous, South American holiday.

Earlier, the opening items had their crisp, almost brusque moments. Opting for a more "authentic" fortepiano-like approach for his opening Haydn sonata, Wong Doe gave us rippling runs and a pleasing clarity of line.

But there were some terse, seemingly hurried moments, and the Brahms Intermezzi that followed were sonorous but not broadly reflective.

In the second half there was a musical, low-profile evocation of Debussy's Bruyeres. Clearly, Wong Doe was letting us sample many aspects of his pianism within a reasonably economical programme.

But it was the final piece, the little-played and prodigiously difficult Fantasia in C by Schumann that made the most lasting impression.

Opening up as though he were freeing a wild horse from captivity, Wong Doe let the music have all its bold rushes and erratic freedom, yet still gave full rein to the difficult cross-rhythms, subtle inner voices and occasionally solemn processional moments that make Schumann's volatile, kaleidoscopic textures into a marvellous tapestry of sound.

A fine recital this, displaying an increasingly skilful and mature pianist who combines inner sensitivity with a broad, colourful sweep that will make for many stirring performances to come.