AN unusually large audience enjoyed Pascal Roge’s recital in Hexham.

The celebrated pianist, brought up and trained in Paris, has made French music his speciality throughout a distinguished career. It was therefore no surprise that his whole programme came from that tradition.

The music ranged from Erik Satie’s 1888 Gymnopedie , through works by Ravel and Debussy composed early in the last century to a set of variations by Poulenc from the 1930s.

As is his custom, the pianist asked his audience not to applaud after each piece. This certainly sustained the music’s flow, though longer (silent) pauses between items might have helped the following of it.

In short and elegant introductions, Roge remarked that Satie’s music had long been overshadowed by Debussy’s and dismissed as too eccentric. Perhaps as a response, he began each half with two very familiar and popular pieces – the first Gymnopedie and the tuneful and humorous Je te veux .

He also played Satie’s Sonatine Bureaucratic , a typically quirky title for a piece sometimes deliberately ponderous. Ravel’s Sonatine was more obviously serious, and consistently tuneful. It was followed by Poulenc’s collection of musical tributes to friends, pleasantly mixed in tone and style.

Then the concert ended with its most substantial work, Debussy’s first set of Preludes.

Each of the 12 is unusual in having a written description, the best known being ‘the cathedral under the water’ and ‘the girl with the flaxen hair’. They create very different and attractive sound worlds.

Indeed, the playing throughout the recital was strikingly varied in mood and tone. Playing from memory music with which he is so thoroughly familiar, he conveyed vividly to a highly appreciative audience what it has meant to him over the years.

Predictably, his encore was also French, though by another composer. This he did play from music composed and copied out for him by Dutailleux when the pianist was only nine. He must have been quite a player even then!

Tony Edwards