Dominika Mak in Chichester

Dominika Mak, Chichester Cathedral, Mar 17 

Some composers have onomatopoeiac names that pre-figure the sound of their music. By no means all of them but a few. The zest imparted into Stravinsky in that second syllable goes into The Rite of Spring, Liszt is a bolt of lightning and Corelli very decorative. Thus, the one syllable of Brahms stretches out like a semi-breve, like his extended melodic lines full of longing. Except in the early Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5, he is moody and impassioned, ready to be in thrall to Clara Schumann and apparently not yet settled into the lush unfolding of the fourth symphony.

First up, though, by way of contrast was a Scarlatti Sonata, in C# minor - one of the 555, you can't miss it. Dominika Mak brought out all its crystalline qualities in the luminous fluency she brought out of the Chichester Yamaha.

The Brahms, though, begins with grand gestures apparently coming out of dark places. Only 20 when he wrote this third and last of his piano sonatas and he comes to it with the vigour of youth. The second movement is an Andante that takes as its text,

Through evening's shade, the pale moon gleams

While rapt in love's ecstatic dreams

Two hearts are fondly beating.  

Dominika's sensitive playing made this perhaps the most memorable section, the reflectiveness becoming climactic before what sounded like ecstacies in the Scherzo.

If Brahms admired Clara, Beethoven was a similarly huge presence in his imagination and the Intermezzo insistently plays on the 'fate' motif from the Fifth Symphony as if possessed by its spirit. But the Allegro finale elaborates its theme into an affirmative statement of hope. If it's true that it requires great virtuosity without being overly spectacular or showing off that is very much what Dominika Mak achieved.

It's a week of piano sonatas for me. It took me a long time to realize that 'size' in music isn't dependent on the number of musicians involved. A Haydn symphony is generally neat and tidy whereas sonatas can be enormous. The Scarlatti was so short that the audience didn't realize that that was all there was and it went unapplauded, there was no doubt that the Brahms had reached the end, though.