THE SCOTSMAN. 7 May 2005

Even before Murray McLachlan plays a note, you feel you’ve experienced a performance. The Scots-born pianist’s spoken introductions brought life to a substantial programme, softening the barrier between the artist and the audience in the impressive new Fotheringay centre. Anyone who can describe Beethoven in such easy to grasp terms and make sense of such monsters as the ‘Pathetique’ and ‘Appassionata’ Sonatas has a special gift of communication. By then reinforcing his comments with penetrating performances, McLachlan showed us just why he is one of the most personable recitalists on the current circuit.

Intellect lays a large role in his musical approach. In both Beethoven sonatas, it was as if McLachlan was dissecting the works systematically. He is sparing and sometimes unorthodox with the pedal. Nothing is blurred; the textures appear to be built up from the bare roots; the drama was red raw and riveting.

The same elemental passion resurfaced in Schubert’s windswept ‘Wandere’ Fantasy, but not before McLachlan revealed his more delicate side in a rare performance of Erik Chisholm’s ‘Sonatina Ecossaise’-not quite the tour-de-force his bigger Sonata is, but nourished by the same inventive reinterpretation of Scots Pibroch-and a well-matched coupling, the C minor Nocturne and explosive B minor Scherzo.

Kenneth Walton