INFALLIBLE BEAUTY

Martino Tirimo's Mozart from Cadogan Hall,
reviewed by BILL NEWMAN

Starting on the eve of the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth, four recitals have already taken place -- 26 January, 6 and 19 May and 7 June 2006. From a musical Londoner's viewpoint, Cadogan Hall, adjacent to Sloane Square, is less well known than the South Bank complex, Barbican and Wigmore Halls, St John's, Smith Square, or the Royal Albert Hall. Martino Tirimo continues to perform exceptionally well, planning and preparing his own series. His backers are the Cadogan management -- a regular arrangement which starts by hiring the hall, then underwriting printing of handouts, series of programmes, mailings, and so on.

Based purely on my experiences as a critical listener and reviewer over many years, so much more needs to take place to really establish him with London audiences.

Don't switch off now. I am not about to be over-concerned here with the average run of the mill performers. Accurate, insensitive and overloud; plain insipid and misleading; even passably good to musically promising or just plainly 'inspired'? I recently heard a BBC Radio 3 announcer describe a gifted pianist in his early 30s as 'Great'. Live, recorded or televised -- they partially stimulute and become easily forgotten by mass audiences once they drop out of the Popularity Polls. Meanwhile, they are perfect fodder for the average hype writers from the National Press.

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