Review: Martin Roscoe ****

It has been a year replete with the music of Robert Schumann to mark the bicentenary of his birth, Martin Roscoe opening his recital with a performance of Kinderszenen, a work set in the world of childhood, his sense of fantasy so precisely capturing the charm of these vignettes.

More birthday celebrations brought a highly charged account of Chopin's Second Sonata into the programme. Few pianists have remembered that fifty years ago the world lost the the distinguished pianist, composer, conductor and teacher, Eno Dohnanyi, the self-effacing architect of 20th century music in Hungary.

Roscoe recalled his passionate, lush and sweeping romantic textures of the gorgeous C major Rhapsody, then turning to the utter charm of the Pastorale on a Hungarian Christmas Song.

In total contrast came his outgoing and highly-charged reading of Beethoven's Appassionata, the intensity of the opening movement and the deeply satisfying slow movement rounded off a finale bristling with virtuosity.

Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, York