Pascal & Ami Rogé (piano)

Kings Place, London 10 June 2010

A delightful piano four-hands recital at Kings Place.

The young Japanese pianist (née Ami Hakuno) is a delectable keyboard partner for her fortunate husband, and her winning smile captivated the audience (as did her equally assured and idiomatic playing) in the French Music series curated by The Schubert Ensemble.

Kings Place removes programme details from its website immediately after concerts, so I give you below a scan from the programme.

Some of this music has been familiar to domestic duettists (not that they're all easy) but it is rare to hear them executed with such charm, vivacity and accuracy. The Kings Place Steinway was perfectly set up and the Hall One acoustics were perfect for this relaxing music. Pascal included a searching account of Fauré's first Nocturne and the solo version of his Ballade, which was followed without break by Clair de Lune.

The pianists exchanged places (control of pedal and responsibility for page turning) in the proper piano-duet manner; my only regret was that Pascal didn't allot his wife one of the solos...

For a joyous encore, we had the riotous Fauré/Messager - Souvenirs de Bayreuth, a response to Wagner in the form of a quadrille.

FAURÉ's ‘Dolly’ and DEBUSSY's Petite Suite for piano duet are include on their first joint CD ONYX 4047, with another to follow later this year.

Peter Grahame Woolf