Rachel Quinn (piano)

IT'S a few years since I heard the pianist Rachel Quinn in recital. The tendencies of her musical taste and temperament are very much as I encountered them before. Last night's John Field Room recital opened with some ritual classical starters before the warm hearted romanticism of the later and more substantial courses was served up.

The climax of the evening was Schumann's Carnaval in, what I reckon to be the fastest - or at least the hastiest - account of it that I can recall hearing in concert. The paciness of the reading raised recurrent concerns of technical control which resulted in a serious reduction of contrast within the cycle as a whole as well as some unusual departures from the text, the most remarkable in Schumann's devilishly difficult leaping staccato picture of Paganini.

Carnaval was given the whole of the second half to it self and the pieces of the first half of the evening were grouped in two pairs - the Busoni and Liszt by being run together as one, the opening Haydn and Beethoven by sharing a common key (a decision which flies in the face of common practice, not to mention Alfred Brendel's single "hard and fast rule in programme making" that "works in the same key should not follow one another").

The two operatic fantasies both featured some nice filigree work though neither had real bravura or sufficient sensitivity to the vocal originals to which the two pianist/composers were paying homage. Limitations of accuracy and bravura curtailed the interest of the Beethoven Variations - clipping so many of the obstacles in an obstacle course is really not much fun at all.

Haydn's C minor Sonata was generally done with altogether greater nimbleness, though responsiveness to matters of musical style and alertness to dynamics were not among the strongest points of this performance. However, the player's engagingly light touch and attractively demure tone suggested that, in her late twenties, she is still managing to open up new avenues of resource which will aid her outside of her favourite haunts in the romantic heartland.