The first concert for 1966 in the lunch-hour series promoted by the Rhodesian Academy of Music yesterday featured a pianoforte recital by Anneke Bean (Anne Visser), recently returned to Bulawayo.
Miss Bean has never lacked facility at the piano, but I found a new maturity in her choice of pieces, in her interpretive thoughtfulness and her confidence of expression. She is no longer just a promising student, but an interesting performer.
I was worried, though, at the start. The Sonata in B minor by Scarlatti (Domenico, not Alessandro as announced) was over-pedalled an romantically over-coloured , so that the passage work was smudged and the taut Spanish rhythms pulled out of shape.
It was a strange thought to group this with Liszt’s Concert Study in D. flat, but she gave the study a fine performance, technically strong and shaped with admirable sureness of direction.
It may be that her reading of Poulenc’s Mouvements Perpetuels was slightly deadpan. It is probably good Gallic style, though, to dispense its parody and humour as lightly as she did.
A Prelude by Rachmaninov (G sharp minor) was fluent and stylish, and Miss Bean concluded with a performance of Dohnanyi’s Rhapsody No. 3 in C minor that had technique, spirit and quite a lot of power.