Music

Susan Tomes

Queens Hall, Edinburgh

Hazel Rowland

Four stars

Susan Tomes insisted in her short introduction to Thursday night’s concert that Book 2 of Debussy’s Prèludes are not ‘dreamy’. Yet this is the word that springs to mind for this shimmering piano music that entices its listeners to sink into their own world of reflection. To have done so would be a mistake, however, as it would have meant missing the many subtle facets she brought to Debussy’s twelve exquisite character pieces. Tomes’s playing was characterised by its containment and refinement, producing a rather singular expressivity. In ‘General Lavine’ – eccentric, which depicts a quirky American juggler, Tomes captured its jaunty character without becoming too brash. She evoked the sumptuous romanticism in Feuilles mortes (dead leaves) and Bruyères (heather) without becoming overly indulgent. 

Debussy’s wistfulness lingered in the two Schubert Impromptus that followed. Tomes refused to push the G-flat Impromptu too quickly, instead creating a wandering sense of reflection. With the A-flat Impromptu, Tomes demonstrated her ability to switch between profoundly different moods. After the opening’s graceful hopefulness, the melancholic middle section, with its strains of pain and pleading, seemed to come from nowhere.

These shifts in character were taken further in Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in E, Op. 109. Though the audience felt disorientated by its unpredictable and sudden mood changes, Tomes remained calmly in control. She revelled in the complexity of the final movement’s fugal section, expertly bringing out each voice with clarity. Most astonishing, however, was Tomes’s refusal to overdramatize the simplicity of the final movement’s main theme. Rather than making its re-appearance at the movement’s close a theatrical moment of revelation, it just appeared. Tomes retained its beautiful simplicity, which might easily have been lost in less secure hands.