Work: Piano Sonata no. 4 in E flat major, K282 (K189g)

Manchester audiences hand out standing ovations once in a blue moon, but that which followed Lang Lang’s Mozart and Chopin programme tonight was the loudest and longest I have seen, after the brilliant Chinese pianist thrilled and delighted a sold-out Bridgewater Hall.

How radical can an exposition repeat be? Well, in the hands of Schubert, very radical indeed, it turns out. The sheer scale of the Molto moderato which opens his final piano sonata means that by the time the opening material returns a huge swathe of time has passed, so much so that each re-encountered phrase is seen in the light of all that happened in the mean time.

Que ce soit dans Mozart, Chopin, Brahms ou Schumann, l'incontesté Premier Prix du Concours Reine Elisabeth de Belgique s'est situé bien en deçà des attentes suscitées par son récent succès.