IT WAS pleasing to see a good audience for the first of Darlington Piano Society’s Sunday afternoon recitals and to hear Ashley Wass again, this time in a programme where each piece was inspired by a Shakespearean play or theme.

It opened with Prokofiev’s arrangement for piano of 10 Pieces from Romeo and Juliet, more familiar as a ballet score.

The range of moods was particularly wide from the cheerful Folk Dance via the grand and imperious Masquers and the wonderfully cheerful Mercutio to the lengthy final Romeo and Juliet before parting with its particularly haunting theme.

Beethoven’s Sonata in D minor, Op. 31, no. 2, written when he was in the depths of despair about his increasing deafness may well have been inspired by The Tempest and its quickly changing moods certainly suggest a story is being unfolded.

Wass handled the contrasts superbly including some remarkably delicate passages and the deliberate, gradually darkening moods.

He advised us beforehand that Smetana’s Macbeth and the Witches is not very melodic but, as we heard, it is an understandably dramatic work, full of tension, perhaps creating a mood rather than telling a story.

Liszt’s Concert Paraphrase on Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream was presumably created to show off his own pianistic virtuosity with the Wedding Theme appearing regularly to give it a satisfying shape and cohesion.

The society’s next recital is by Ashley Fripp is on Sunday, November 20, at Darlington’s Sixth Form College; details at www.dpiano.co.uk.

Peter Bevan