Pavel Nersessian (piano)

3 Pieces Op 57 - Liadov

Prelude and Fugue - Taneyev

Sonata No 10 - Scriabin

Moments musicaux Op 16 Nos 14 - Rachmaninov

Suite bergamasque - Debussy

Ondine - Ravel

La valse - Ravel

Among winners of the Dublin International Piano Competition Pavel Nersessian, who took the top prize in 1991, is arguably the player with the most complete technical armoury.

His playing at the NCH John Field Room on Sunday showed again a strength and independence of finger that only a mere handful of Irish pianists could match.

Interweaving lines with true independence seems to come as naturally to him as breathing air. It is a necessary skill to heighten the tension in the finely-crafted but potentially grey Op 57 pieces by Liadov.

And Taneyev's unruly jungle of a fugue makes such demands that only a pianist with capacity to spare would dream of taking it on.

In Nersessian's hands, Scriabin's Tenth Sonata was full of cunning micro-gestures, the four Rachmaninov Moments musicaux cleanly delivered in gallery-pleasing mode.

In these two better-known works, as in the French music of the second half, Nersessian seems to have become somehow less composer-sensitive. Dynamics were often re-written and there were simplistic chord voicings which diminished the effect of the French music.

Nothing, of course, could really diminish the effect of so well-equipped a player in the bravado of Ravel's La valse for the 10 fingers of two hands. It is a spectacle guaranteed to bring the house down.

And following it with Liadov's Musical Snuff Box as an encore proved a stroke of genius, with some magical stiffening of tempo to recreate the unwinding of a slightly erratic clockwork.