Mishka Rushdie Momen review – unforced elegance and plenty of fireworks

Wigmore Hall, London
A programme based around works by French baroque composers, played on a concert grand, made for an unusual but thoughtful and beautifully played recital

Bach, of course, is commonly heard on piano. The music of the French harpsichordists, on the other hand, is less regularly encountered on a concert grand. In a wide-ranging programme, Mishka Rushdie Momen bucked the trend, bringing an unforced elegance to the music of François Couperin, Jean-Philippe Rameau and Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre.

Natural poise and fluid technique ensure lines have room to breathe while remaining within the bounds of baroque keyboard practice. In Momen’s hands, the Allemande from Rameau’s E minor suite flowed like a limpid stream; likewise, the serene Musette en Rondeau, taken at a significantly slower pace than the plucked strings of a harpsichord might allow. Decorations were plentiful yet never self-conscious (the feathered denizens of the Rappel des Oiseaux trilled most politely). Elsewhere, her determined muscularity filled the hall with a richness of tone: in the earthy tread of the Provençal tambourin, for example, or the swagger of a rigaudon that could have passed muster as a sailor’s hornpipe.