Orrett Rhoden greets the audience at the beginning of his recital at the University of the West Indies Chapel on Sunday April 22. - Colin Hamilton/Freelance Photographer

Michael Reckord, Contributor

Renowned Jamaican concert pianist Orrett Rhoden, who gave his New York solo debut recital at Carnegie Hall in October, 1985, is to play at that famous New York venue again shortly. He gave a pre-Carnegie Hall recital on Sunday afternoon in the University Chapel, Mona.

He played to a full house and, at the end of the two-hour-long event, received a standing ovation. So enthusiastic was the applause that Rhoden thanked the audience with 'brawta,' in the form of Chopin's popular Nocturne in E Flat.

The standing ovation and the light, cheerful Chopin piece figuratively wrapped up and tied the generally delightful evening with a beautiful ribbon.

However, the 17-minute delay in starting annoyed some patrons, including one impatient gentleman who began slow clapping. Trying to get others to do the same, he exclaimed loudly, "We not a bunch of communists waiting on orders!"

But no one joined him, perhaps because the coolness of the evening didn't invite one to get hot under the collar. There had been rain earlier, and at five o'clock, the scheduled 'curtain time', a soothing breeze was blowing from the hazy hills around the campus and across its sparkling gold-green lawns into the chapel.

The precedings

In the five minutes precedingRhoden's entrance, the audience watched two videographers finish setting up their cameras, heard a sound technician with repeated calls of, "Check! One, two, Check!" and listened to requests from a pleasant lady to three drivers to move their vehicles from where they'd been parked, and to the audience generally not to applaud the pianist prematurely.

"Wait until he has removed his hands from the instrument," she advised, alluding to the fact that audiences, whether through ignorance or enthusiasm, sometimes begin applauding between movements rather than at the end of an item.

Rhoden would have had no problem with the applause on Sunday. It came, appropriately, when he made his appearance, smiling and debonair in black and white, and at the end of each composition.

There were five major pieces, all played masterfully on a well-tuned grand piano. The first was Mozart's Sonata in C, K. 330. A generally light, cheerful piece, it often had many nodding their heads to the melody.

According to the useful notes provided to the audience, Einstein called the sonata "one of the most loveable works Mozart ever wrote," and the composer's biographer, Robert Gutman, termed it "ethereal."

Rhoden had to wait until latecomers noisily found their seats before he played the second item, Brahms' 25 variations & Fugue on a Theme by Handel. The mood of this composition is different from the first, filled as it is with some dark, almost angry passages. Rhoden's left hand got a lot of work playing the heavier, deeper notes of this work.

After the intermission, the recital continued with pieces by Schubert. Ravel and Liszt. They were, respectively, Impromptu No. 3, Op. 90, Valse Nobles et Sentimentales and Transcendent Etudes.

Rhoden's fine playing and interpretation of the intrinsically varied works kept the evening interesting.