<p>Li Ying<br />The Haydn E major sonata was played with confidence and assertive brilliance.  There is room now for much more subtlety and sensitivity.  Accents need to be refined and listened to much more carefully.  The left hand in particular was rather unrefined.  More effort to cultivate a beautiful tone in the forte passages would be welcome.   Some of the rhythms and note values (longer notes and rests too) were clipped and need revision by way of simple counting in the practice studio.  It was all a little too hurried and lacking in poetry today.  The climax of the development was out of proportion to the overall dynamic range.  Phrase endings needed to be listened to more carefully in order to avoid accents. Some small slips.  It was all a little too hurried- a slower tempo would afford much more room for expression and imagination. Try beginning trills on the upper note rather than on the main note<br />Liszt’s ‘Un sospiro’ showed happier pianism and a more authoritative sense of style.  Good control at a suitable tempo.  However it was all rather direct and lacking in the requisite sotto voce and subdued mystery.  Much more reserve and concentrated wonder would be needed to really allow the music to float off the page.  Many of the runs were too ‘brilliante’ and sparking- more imaginative use of pedals and more cultivated touch control would be necessary in order to let the music come alive in the magical way that it can do.  More exploration of texture and colour would help enormously.</p><p>Albeniz’s ‘Triana’ had brilliance and percussive confidence, but did not evoke the mysterious, haunting and melancholic spell-binding atmosphere of Albeniz’s evocation of Spain.   Much more sensitivity and searching in terms of phrasing, voicing and pedalling would be necessary in order to really get inside this magical style and recreate the extraordinary sonic palette that is Albeniz’s incomparable ‘Iberia’.</p>