John Lill

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Kate Molleson

Three stars

Something about the way John Lill walks onto a stage — stately pace and poker face, tails and white bowtie — gives the impression he’s done it no other way for the past six decades. The 71-year-old English pianist is a real gentleman of the keyboard, entirely unhysterical and devoid of superficial gesture. His name is mostly associated with no-frills interpretations of Beethoven and that’s exactly what we got here: four piano sonatas in a row, each as matter-of-fact as the last. It was a headline billing of Glasgow’s current Piano series but apparently it was too dry a prospect for a Friday night. The Royal Concert Hall can’t have been more than a quarter full.

And it’s true that Lill’s performance wasn’t easy to love. The opening chords of the Pathetique Sonata were grave and implacable — they didn’t give much away. Lill lumbered through some fast passages and didn’t finesse the rather brusque, metallic sound he drew from the piano, but his recitative lines were disarmingly questioning and when the chords returned they were suddenly more introverted, a hint of reticence perhaps acknowledging his own vulnerability. Something similar happened in the Adagio, which turned inward from very public declaration to something more tender and quietly very personal.

And so it went: a chiselled account of the Moonlight Sonata, a resolute Appassionata, both softened by small and intriguing moments of introspection. The late C minor Sonata Op 111 had clear focus and careful detail, and when the final variations reached their summit, that mighty theme now blown apart into two ecstatic lines at either extremity of the keyboard, Lill’s sense of momentousness was considered and slightly impassive — much like the concert as a whole.