Sonata in A minor K310 - Mozart

Davidsbundlertanze - Schumann

Sonata in F minor Op 57 (Appassionata) - Beethoven

Scherzo No 2 - Chopin

The regularity with which Japanese pianist Noriko Ogawa has been appearing in Ireland since her success (third prize) at the 1987 Leeds Piano Competition is a fair indication of the enthusiasm of her followers. John Ruddock of the Limerick Music Association must take credit for the prominence she's achieved in Ireland, just as the Swedish label BIS, which has recently taken up her cause, can claim credit for a recent lift in international profile.

In spite of the frequency of her visits, last night's concert at DCU was actually my first opportunity to hear her in a full mainstream solo programme on a Steinway concert grand. She came across as a solid player, reliable in technique and circumspect, within her own sights, in musicianship.

I found it difficult to relate to the breeziness she brought to the first movement of Mozart's A minor Sonata. It was as if she wanted to cleanse the piece of darker elements, and replace them with a child-like openness.

In Schumann's Davidsbundlertanze, she seemed reined in by the outgoing demands of the composer's invented Florestan alterego, yet not quite the introvert to give full rein to the fantasy of his Eusebius counter-part.

There was greater risk-taking in Beethoven's Appassionata, in a performance that was prepared to justify the title, and even more in a fiery reading of Chopin's B flat minor Scherzo. Here she seemed at last to have fully unwound, and the Takemitsu encore (Rain Tree Sketch II, complete with a story about the composer's blanket-covered piano) rounded off the evening in well-judged contrast.