Belem – Didier Laloy (diatonic accordion), Kathy Adam (cello)

Listed under ‘Classical’ I expected some smoochy café tunes, Piazzolla’s nuevo tango or even clever Bach transcriptions, but this programme was all in Laloy’s idiosyncratic style: intense, mostly in rondo format, agile, percussive, sensuous, with unresolved endings. There was plenty to like but it was not ‘chamber music’ as advertised. As Laloy stated halfway through, their programme is a show not a concert, developed for arenas and audiences of 10,000 not for 200 in a church. Both instruments were amplified and so for most of the event, in the generous acoustic of All Saints’, were just too loud to enjoy.

All Saints Church, Hove, 19 May 2017

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