Ratcheting up the romance

HUGH TINNEY (piano), UO/Jane Glover

Ulster Hall, Belfast

Fri 7.45pm Adm free

00-44-370-9011227

Following last week’s Belfast performance of John Field, there’s another rare Irish piano concerto to be heard this week in the BBC’s series of free invitation concerts with the Ulster Orchestra. Friday’s Ulster Hall programme under Jane Glover features Hugh Tinney as the soloist in the 1922 Piano Concerto by Hamilton Harty, a work in a romantic mould in which the spirit of Rachmaninov can be clearly heard. Harty shares the programme with another Irish composer, Elaine Agnew (Straight to the Point) and three Frenchmen, Ravel (Le Tombeau de Couperin), Roussel (Petite Suite) and Massenet (Scènes Alsaciennes). Tinney, whose recording of Ian Wilson’s Limena has just been issued on a Riverrun CD, also features in the upcoming Music21 series at the National Concert Hall, where he can be heard with the Callino String Quartet in piano quintets by Thomas Adès and Alfred Schnittke on Tuesday.