Ida Pelliccioli in Chichester

 Ida Pelliccioli, Chichester Catheral, Jul 4

It is often for the best for a concert programme to have a theme or thread like today's 'journey from Spanish keyboard music to the Viennese Classic Style through the worl of Manuel Blasco de Nebra. Although little known, Blasco de Nebra was made the link between three much bigger names.

Two Sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti were the starting point, K. 492 capricious and flighty and the minor key K. 197 a more urbane definition of the baroque.

Mozart's Fantasia and Fugue K. 394 rolled down some scales before becoming a homage to Bach, contructing its own miniature cathedral of sound from a simple motif. The Fantasia K.396, though, was less like Mozart than de Nebra's two Sonatas, nos. 10 and 1, especially in the slow movement of no. 10 before the skipalong second movement. No. 1 was certainly closer to Mozart than Haydn ever was. Born six years before Mozart in 1750, they are very close contemporaries given Mozart's precocious bagiinings.

Id Pelliccioli was sympathetic and utterly coherent in these closely-related pieces with emphasis never overstated.

Schubert's Drei Klavierstücke, D. 946, were immediately fuller, broader and richer, demonstrating the move from the C18th to the 19th. The E major passed through some darker hints in a middle passage before the C major built towards a signature finish. On such evidence it would be tempting to make Schubert the greater composer, as some no doubt would, but Mozart at least wasn't in top gear.

Although over-running the usual finishing time of 2 p.m. there was a Tarantella encore to bring the whole series to a close but the programme beginning again on Sept 5th is already available so we look forward to the autumn after all the holidays.