Two grand pianos nestling together make one leviathan of an instrument. Kicking off the second double-decker evening of this year's Park Lane Group series celebrating young artists and new music was the duo Rosey Chan and Cassie Yukawa.
Their most substantial work was Ligeti's intriguing Three Pieces, based essentially on simple figures played on each instrument merging in and out of phase, here persuasively performed. Most memorable of several newer pieces was Kenneth Hesketh's detailed, mercurial yet lyrical Netsuke Fragments; the first of the two parts was receiving its premiere. The duo also had a lot of fun with Anthony Powers' Flyer, a more easy-going showpiece. Playing this from memory, their communication shone through; they make an engaging, polished team, and the fact that they can get round all that pedalling in three-inch stilettos won't do them any harm.
With the scheduled mezzo ill, flautist Daniel Parkin and pianist Lindy Tennent-Brown made impressive stand-ins in the later concert. With its repetitive major-key harmonies, their first piece, Anne Boyd's Bali Mood No. 1, was bound to sound naive, but the pair brought out its best, capturing its sonorities. Yet Lowell Liebermann's two-movement Sonata and Aaron Copland's deceptively simple Duo, stylishly performed, sounded even more eloquent for the comparison.
There was meatier stuff in the works for violin and piano played by Ning Kam and Daniel Becker, though that description didn't apply to Paul Moravec's energetic but harmless Ariel Fantasy, despite the piece apparently being a study for a trio that won him last year's Pulitzer Prize. But Witold Lutoslawski's 1984 Partita offered greater opportunities, with Kam building and maintaining tension with powerful tone and a sure technique. The hesitant creeping-up music of James Olsen's The Eight-Legged Altar Attendant offered a lighter touch which by then was welcome, but the piece that made most impact was John Adams' three Road Movies, which began with these two very promising players sparking swinging cross-rhythms off each other and ended on a sustained blast of power.
· Series runs until tomorrow. Box office: 08703 800 400.
