Nocturne In E flat minor Op 33/1 - Faure

Gnossiennes Nos 2,4 &5 - Satie

Sonatine - Ravel

Les Soirees de Nazelles - Poulenc

Preludes: Book I - Debussy

Hugh Tinney, the new artistic director of Music in Great Irish Houses, has chosen to explore the French repertoire in this year's festival, and the opening recital was instructive and entertaining.

Pascal Roge (piano) played the works by Faure, Satie and Ravel without any break for applause, so that a subtle family resemblance became apparent. The simplicities of Satie could be traced back to Faure, and moments in Ravel could have been written by Satie. In Roge's delicate but authoritative playing, Faure's Nocturne Op 33/1 emerged as a work of considerable stature, dwarfing Satie's Gnossiennes and Ravel's Sonatine, despite the showy elaborations of the latter.

The first half of the recital concluded with a spirited performance of Poulenc's Les Soirees de Nazelles in which the enfant terrible of French music guys in an amusing fashion the styles and mannerisms of other composers.

French music seems to breathe another air than that of German music, and nowhere more than in Debussy's preludes. Formal structures seem to dissolve and melody and harmony are inextricably confused. In his performance of Book I, Roge knew just where to linger and where to hasten, weaving shifting viols of sound but ready to tear them apart when the music demanded.