Wit and brilliance - with humour as well

PIANIST Ariel Lanyi, born in Jerusalem and now based in London, flew in from Germany to be in Nottingham on Sunday morning.

- By WILLIAM RUFF

Ariel Lanyi

He started by telling the audience that his recent travels disprove two old chestnuts: that German trains always run on time - and that Germans have no sense of humour.

Humour was at the heart of the first piece on the menu: Beethoven's Piano Sonata No 16 in G. It's a highly unusual work but it needs an artist like Ariel to show us just how quirky it must have sounded to its first audiences. He was brilliant at showing just how much Beethoven was pushing against musical boundaries. It's not often that classical music makes an audience laugh, but Ariel's performance was impossible to resist.