‘And for his centrepiece he gave the world premiere of a work by Thomas Simaku entitled Catena IV, ideally placed in this recital in that its fourth section is a homage to Chopin (built on the exact notes of the start of Chopin’s First Ballade), its fifth section a homage to Ligeti and its eighth section bears the subtitle ‘Ligeti Meets Chopin’. It all felt like an improvisation, sometimes monosyllabic, sometimes garrulous and sometimes with crystalline high notes that contrasted with manually plucked strings in the bass.
'Driver rounded things off with a sequence of pieces by Chopin and Fauré that came from the heart. There was no encore – and why should there have been one, with a programme so perfectly shaped?'
The review can be read in full here.