Simon Trpceski began this Wigmore Hall concert, recorded last March, with Schubert's German Dances, D783, light pieces approached without a hint of sentimentality and sounding all the better and more substantial for it. The same seriousness of approach, bolstered by a fine, firm technique, informs the rest of the programme. Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy is kept on a firm trajectory. Liszt's arrangement of Bach's organ Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV543, is unfolded with measured dignity. And in the three pieces of pure Liszt – the Petrarch Sonnet No 104, Les jeux d'eau à la Villa d'Este , and Hungarian Rhapsody No 2, well chosen for contrast of mood and manner – Trpceski keeps the all-important showmanship in finely judged balance.
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