Dominic Degavino, Matthew Scott and Christine Zerafa review: Young classical talent pass tests with flying colours

Ones to watch: Pianist Christine Zerafa played with virtuoso command
Barry Millington8 January 2019

Not content with its annual showcase in the Purcell Room, the Park Lane Group now mounts 35 events throughout the year, including a Monday Platform at the Wigmore Hall for young artists of outstanding promise. One is the pianist Dominic Degavino, who has been attracting much attention even though he’s still a student at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

The Scarlatti group with which he opened showed why. His subtlety of phrasing and delicacy of touch transformed these keyboard “exercises” into wonderfully crafted gems with an iridescent play of colour in K.141 in D minor and an expressive elegiac undertow for K.87 in B minor.

To John McCabe’s Scrunch, a study written in homage to Scarlatti, he brought pungent textures and taut jazzy rhythms. Even more impressive was the stylish way he navigated the dense undergrowth of Berg’s Piano Sonata, highlighting the salient themes and clarifying the structure.

Degavino is a pianist to watch. And he shared the platform with two other remarkable talents: clarinettist Matthew Scott and pianist Christine Zerafa, pictured. Debussy’s Première Rhapsodie was written as a Paris Conservatoire examination piece and with their sensual, silky tone and virtuoso command, these artists would have passed with flying colours. The jazzy inflections and Scott’s glissandi in the Presto finale of Paul Patterson’s Conversations neatly caught its carnivalesque spirit.

In John Ireland’s Fantasy-Sonata of 1943, the wistful quality of Scott’s long, lyrical lines suggested a stroll down English country lanes. The players were alert also, though, to the work’s rhapsodic nature and odd outbursts of passion. Poulenc’s Clarinet Sonata of 1962 is, by contrast, a work of almost saccharine sonorities, albeit spiced with mordant wit. Scott and Zerafa captured both aspects with their expressive playing.

Where to hear classical music in London - In pictures

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