Kaoru Wada and Malcolm Forbes-Peckham (pianos)

Malvern St James on Sunday, March 13

INEVITABLY, the recent earthquake was at the back of everybody’s mind during this concert.

Partly because one of the pianists in this duo, Kaoru Wada, is Japanese and has a family who reportedly survived the earthquake.

Attention was drawn to this in an introduction at the beginning of her concert on Sunday night with pianist Malcolm Forbes-Peckham.

The occasion was by no means doom and gloom for all that. The duo could clearly see the child-like humour in Mozart’s K. 448 D major Sonata for two pianos almost like characters in a Mozart opera.

During passages when they are in a sort of dialogue with each other, it is almost as if they are able to read each other’s mind, as one partner continues gestures that the other begun.

They tried hard in Rachmaninov’s Suite No. 2 for two pianos to make differences in dynamic markings (louds were really loud) and softs were relatively placid, delicate and unpeturbing. This worked as well as they very assiduously co-ordinated Lutoslawski Paganini Variations for two pianos.

The coordination is so apt that often one might be forgiven for believing that only one pianist was playing. The Schubert Fantasie op 103 in F minor demonstrated a visual difference because of this work is a one piano-four hands piece; Malcolm Forbes-Peckham moving around more than his partner for this one.

Contrast came with Debussy’s En Blanc et Noir (1st Movement) and with a two-piano version of John Wilson’s Carmen Fantasie. It is a shame that up the road the Chandos Symphony Orchestra concert was taking place on the same night as this because some of the empty seats could have been filled.