February 5, 2018

Your Observer

Edward Alley

With an abundance of technique, [von Oeyen] gave a wonderful performance of this sometimes underrated concerto….The second movement was an extended nocturne with von Oeyen at one with Chopin’s lovely melodies, each section seeming more romantic than the preceding one.The concerto’s finale was a thicket of technical bravura, complete with runs of double thirds, always a pianist’s nemesis, yet he performed them with such apparent ease they seemed mere child’s play. His enthusiastic audience was rewarded with an encore of von Oeyen’s transcription of the Meditation from Massenet’s opera “Thais,” which was played with simplicity and inherent beauty.

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