Cordelia Williams, Kendal Town Hall

Pianist Cordelia Williams, Kendal Midday Concert Club’s recent recitalist, proffered a programme that superbly illuminated her significant musicianly gifts. Here is an elegant, composed musician who is in complete control of her herself, her music-making and her career. Her performances of Mozart’s Rondo in A minor, K511, Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze, Op 6 and Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantasie, Op 61 - wide-ranging in their technical and emotional demands - were dazzling.

Features that will long linger in the memory are too many to detail minutely, but here are a few! A technical facility to die for – finger dexterity, delicacy of touch, a powerful strength, (particularly in her left hand), expert pedal control, refined use of dynamic contrast. Then we consider her poise, her most sensitive feeling for phrasing, her unfailing ability to reveal the beauty and importance of inner parts, her lyrical delineation and her ever-present sense of poetry. Finally, there is her constant pursuit of stylistic authenticity; her Mozart reading possessed a truly classical purity, whilst her Schumann and Chopin performances were warm, passionate and thoroughly romantic.

Brian Paynes