Audience spellbound by sounds of Mengyang Pan

Chinese-born British pianist Mengyang Pan

Members of the audience sat spellbound as the Heywood Civic Centre auditorium was filled with the finely balanced sounds of Chinese-born British pianist Mengyang Pan playing music by Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Liszt on Saturday 9 February. 

With seemingly effortless precision, even in the most physically demanding moments of Schumann’s Symphonic Studies and Liszt’s brilliant Gondolieri, Canzona and Tarrantella from his Années de pélinerage, she demonstrated an extraordinary mastery of both instrument and music. It would be impossible to find even the slightest out-of-place note or the merest flaw in her armour of interpretation to draw to the attention of any nit-picking critic. The whole experience was one of sheer musical magic conjured up by an expert keyboard magician.

Simply delightful in every respect, and not least her insightful introductions to the items in the programme, Mengyang brought to her music-making an obvious understanding of the composers’ intentions in every bar of their thinking. In Beethoven’s Sonata in D major Op.10.No.3 she revealed the depth of his intense feelings of both despair, as in the slow movement, and delight, as in the quirkish and witty finale . In Liszt’s transcriptions of Schubert’s songs, Serenade and The Erl King, she revealed the sonorous singing voice of the instrument.

The Symphonic Studies of Schumann, executed with all the resourcefulness the composer demands of those bold enough to go into the business of ‘variation’ with him – his was nothing if not an in-depth exploration of what an apparently uneventful theme had to offer – offered what might easily have been itself a very satisfying conclusion to an exhausting evening’s work. But, not to be deterred by their potentially career-challenging difficulties, Menyang proceeded to round off a brilliant evening’s work with stunning performances of Liszt’s three pieces evoking memories of the composers’ sojourns in the Italian cities of Venice and Naples and the arms of his then mistress.

Rochdale Music Society’s next concert with be on 16 March at Heywood Civic Centre, when the long-established wind ensemble, Zephyr, will be playing music from the 19th and 20th centuries.