Craig Greene & Robert Patterson at Lunchtime Live!

Craig Greene & Robert Patterson, Portsmouth Cathedral, Apr 16

Chopin and Debussy provide a nutritious and enjoyable staple diet for the piano repertoire, often heard and fare enough. If it seems we don't get enough Bach perhaps it is unrealistic to expect to live on champagne all the time because then what would one have left for a special treat. Gladly, Craig Greene and Robert Patterson served up Three cantata movements, arranged by Leonard Duck, which were exquisite and long on the palate.

The congestion of four hands over, under and across each other in Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring was like watching a game of Twister, the timing and teamwork required something to behold with it getting mighty crowded in the middle of the keyboard. These Edwardian settings were by no means overly sentimental but works of great artistry in themselves. Sheep May Safely Graze was beautifully done and Wachet Auf completed an idyllic triptych with the melodic line moving from Craig at the higher end of the register to Robert in the engine room.

Three popular classics from Bach's Greatest Hits done differently but gorgeously as if champagne had been successfully re-invented.

Before that, Schubert's Fantasie, op. 103, was imperious in its blaze of activity with no trace of the melancholy that I try to find evidence to the contrary of in his music. As such compulsive composers do, he goes to great lengths to find all that can be found in the thematic material if only because it must be there.

In both that and the Bach, it's hard to say whether Craig or Robert had the best job or starring role, not least because there's really no such thing. But three of Dvořák's Slavonic Dances were a headlong flourish of dazzling tempi with Craig rollicking along among the high notes. I can't remember the last time I was quite so glad of a prime position to see the hands. Any faster would have made it unviable. I asked. They had tried. And it wasn't.

A brilliantly thought-out programme made for a joyful occasion with mostly familiar music re-presented gloriously. Schubert and Dvořák are both great, forever with special places in one's favourite music, but - as regular readers might one day tire of hearing me say- Bach is well beyond that.

Without any more dispensing of enthusiasm, I must get on the internet and see if there is a CD of those cantata movements for four hands on piano. I need to serve my own purposes and it's no longer obvious that what remains of our lives is going to be quite as amenable as it has been so far. We might find ourselves needing such rafts to cling to. The opportunity to hear Craig and Robert play them again might not present itself so four other hands will have to suffice.