CERTAINLY NIMBLE

Pianist Antony Peebles opened Derby Chamber Music's new season (Multi-Faith Centre, Derby University, Derby, UK, 19 September 2014) with what, on paper, looked a promising and well-thought out programme. Schubert's last and greatest piano sonata, D 960 in B flat, was followed, after the interval, with three songs by Schubert's great successor as a song-writer, Schumann, in transcriptions by Liszt, and Ravel's individual take on Lisztian virtuosity, Gaspard de la Nuit.

In spite of some expressive moments the Schubert received a prosaic performance, on the whole, with some quite mechanical phrasing...