Béla Hartmann at Lunchtime Live!

Béla Hartmann, Portsmouth Cathedral, October 9 

This wonderful Autumn continues to provide. My pre-concert gaze across the harbour was accompanied by a nearby radio. Such things can often be noise pollution but not when it's Al Green, still Tired of Being Alone after all these years. But the real business was a first go for Béla Hartmann on the Cathedral Bosendorfer.

Das wohltemperierte Klavier always makes for a special occasion. They are all too rare as if it's saved for Sunday best. Béla's C major, BWV 846, was contemplative, opening out like a flower in sunlight before his D major was contrastingly more forthcoming. It is 'desert island' music the like of which precious few have ever written on such a scale and one is ever grateful to hear it in the flesh.

Before that, to begin, Schubert's Impromptu, D. 935 no. 1, had the right-hand playing centre midfield like the engine room for the most part with the left switching either side and, in a highly coherent programme, four of Béla's own Pieces for the Right Hand Alone showed him to be a C19th composer in disguise whether in the almost lullaby Song of the Thief, the dancing Etude, the emotional impact of the Elegy or the drama of the Prelude.

But perhaps all these fed in some way into Chopin's Ballade no. 4, op. 52, which was gloriously expansive and deeply impressive with the piano rarely having sounded as good. It is to be hoped that Béla returns as part of another season without too much delay. I'll be devastated if he doesn't.