A RETURN visit by Russian pianist Sophia Lisovskaya marked the start of the new concert season in the chapel at the almshouses near Redcar. She began with a thoughtful and intense performance of Mozart’s B minor Adagio K 340, an effective prelude to three Chopin works.

In Chopin’s Nocturne op 9/1, she caught the quiet of the night with assurance, while the F sharp Barcarolle, op 60 caught the romanticism of the piece tellingly, in contrast to her strongly defined, yet elegant, B flat minor Scherzo, op 11 that ended the first half.

The rest of the evening was given over to Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons, op 37, a suite of 12 short descriptive pieces tracing the months of the year. Each was preceded by a brief spoken introduction and musically all was finely wrought and colourful.

A Rachmaninov Prelude from the op 32 provided a welcome encore.

The next Kirkleatham concert is by Arta Arnicane, from Latvia, on November 16, her fifth visit to the chapel (details: communigate.co.uk/ne/classicsatkirkleatham/). She also performs for Darlington Piano Society on November 17 and at Stockton Arc at 1pm on November 20.