By Carol Main, The Scotsman Music Critic
ALTHOUGH she gave a conventional piano recital at the Queen's Hall in the morning, Venezuelan Gabriela Montero let her hair down for Tuesday's late night at The Hub to display an astonishing skill in improvisation.
Inviting members of the audience to sing her a tune – any tune – she would play over the given notes of it a couple of times before going on to produce a unique and spontaneous piece of music based upon them.
Explaining that the all-but-lost art of piano improvisation was her way of entering a world of fantasy, she took the first five note theme thrown at her and turned something akin to a beginner's Associated Board aural test into a lush, romantic meandering that Rachmaninov could have put his name to.
From a fairly unimaginative audience next up was Yesterday. Transformed into Beatles á la Chopin, Montero's take on this pop classic moved on seamlessly to become a South American tango.
Then a more challenging request from the heart of the classical repertoire – the Moonlight Sonata. Montero's contrapuntal version could almost have come from Bach, rather than Beethoven.
Ragtime and jazz emerged as other influences on her improvisations – including even a fantasia on Loch Lomond – which may be instantaneous but are rhythmically and harmonically well constructed.