The Hungarian guitar duo giving a 30th anniversary Hollywood-themed concert in the beautiful surroundings of the St George's Hall Concert Room. Although they began with some compositions of a little known 20th century Italian composer, their move into the works of one of his pupils, Henry Mancini, took us into much more familiar territory, which is where they remained for most of the show, AS well as film and TV music there was a bit of Django Reinhardt, and a piece written by Peter Katona that opened the second set.
Their technical perfection is in no doubt, the musical empathy between them is obvious, and it's constantly impressive how they are able to seamlessly switch the lead from brother to brother. The arrangements are clever, with even a weel kent like the Pink Panther theme taking on a new life. Each number is preceded by an introduction for one of the two, and although their accents remain pronounced they are both informative and amusing - the Carl Bernstein story was a cracker.
Criticisms? Classical training has it's disadvantages, removing the passion from the gypsy jazz and leaving it impressively accurate but bloodless. And I don't think I've ever seen anybody bow so much in my life. It became a running joke to us...
Despite these wee quibbles this was an impressive performance. I particularly enjoyed Peter's dramatic interpretation of The Brother Karamazov, a Hitchcockian theme that was the most cinematic of all the numbers played. A tour de force.
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