The Ivory Duo at Lunchtime Live !

 The Ivory Duo, Portsmouth Cathedral, Mar 5

At the obvious risk of appearing overly highbrow, the way the local music year moves on might might be compared with Ovid's Fasti, a calendar of customs, holidays and rituals. Having so recently had the Brighton New Music composers at Lunchtime Live! and the English Piano Trio in Chichester, the latest recurrent event was the always welcome return of the Ivory Duo.

Most often seen and heard as four hands on one keyboard, Panayotis Archontides and Natalie Tsaldarakis were today mostly two soloists.

With Natalie on first, Debussy's Pour Le Piano: Prelude was a dark drama that unloaded a few explosives that didn't match with the sunlit nave. At least as technically demanding in what was going to prove to be such a programme, Ginastera's Danzas Argentinas was rhythmically complex in no. 1 before hauntingly pretty in no. 2 but both presenting different dancing challenges, had one wanted to try.

Panayotis took over and was soon up to a similar level of viruosity in the op.12 Bagatelles of Miklós Rózsa. After the short, sharp shock of Kleiner Marsch, Valse Lente complimented the light, Canzone was long on the palette and, there's often a clue in the title, Capriccietto was capricious to the point of frenzy.  

In a bumper edition of Lunchtime Live! an extensive selection of Hugh Benham's work included Home Street, more pyrotechnics with glimpses of lyricism, Memoranda about a Wiltshire childhood which might not have been a text book idyll, the full-blooded chiming of Pigeons on a Wire and the brisk, invigorating duet Good Morning. 

By no means all 'easy listening', there was much to admire in the energy and musicianship. There were times one might have thought there were four hands at work when there had been only two.