Jill Crossland (piano)

NCH John Field Room, Dublin

Bach

– Five Preludes and Fugues; English Suite No 2.

Schumann

– Novelette Op 21 No 1; Kinderszenen.

Chopin

– Two Nocturnes; Two Studies; Ballade No 3.

English pianist Jill Crossland has established something of a reputation as a Bach specialist. She's recorded the Goldberg Variationsand the complete Well-Tempered Clavier, and Bach dominated her Irish debut at the NCH John Field Room.

There was something almost refreshingly old-fashioned about her approach to Bach. She came across as someone who’s chosen to play the music just as she feels it, unencumbered by scholarship or historicism.

It's not often you'll hear such an easy, free-flowing approach to the famous C major Prelude from the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier, or such straightforwardly joyous exuberance in the faster movements of the Second English Suite.

On this occasion, her Bach was not consistently successful. At times she sounded laboured when the textures were heavy, and there are many other players who can make lighter work of Bach’s fugal writing. But when her Bach flowed at its most free, it was decidedly captivating. She showed herself to be a player who can command attention without, as it were, having to raise her voice.

The 19th-century works which she placed after the interval were an altogether more mixed bag. The best moments in Schumann's Scenes from Childhoodwere those which were light and fleet.

She made heavy weather of the first of the composer’s Novelettes, and her Chopin was let down by a tendency to go blustery in climaxes. She gave the impression of liking a touch of thunder in the bass, and showed a tendency towards leaving her right foot on the sustaining pedal longer than was good for clarity. These sound like behaviours that would favour romantic composers. The wonder of it all was that it was in Bach that she sounded best.