The air always feels cooler before the music starts. Hushed whispers and gentle anticipation fills St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral. Built in Victorian Gothic style, high vaulted ceilings promise rich and highly resonant acoustics. We’re far from the madding crowd. There are literally thousands of shows to choose from in our festival city, celebrated virtuoso classical pianist Susan Tomes’ Nocturnes offer a welcomed cocoon. Many of us are turning to night music as we struggle to find sleep. Susan starts with a trio of Nocturnes from maestros John Field, Clara Schumann, and Maurice Ravel.

What follows is an inclusive journey into an enchanting place where the soft dim light of dusk descends and conjures up images in the mind’s eye of paintings such as James McNeill Whistler’s Nocturne Blue and Silver – Chelsea from 1871.

As the music continues and the stories unfold we are guided into nightfall. What creatures of the night might we encounter there, where will our imaginations lead us in this place where our minds are liberated and free to roam and wonder? Oscar Wilde’s lyrical poem In the Forest also evokes this fleeting musical encounter where the magic happens.

Having said that, this is no lullaby. With the music evoking complex emotions we are reminded that evenings are not peaceful for everyone. Particularly as we are living through increasingly troubling times, sleep can be evasive and far from the seeming calm of Whistler’s Nocturne paintings. Closer perhaps in nature to Edvard Munch’s paintings of angst. His painting: Anxiety comes to mind. As does Sylvia Plath’s poetry such as Nocturne, depicting shadowy atmospheres. The day belongs to the night and as Tomes says we find ourselves among the ballet of the moths.

This complexity gives the performance an added dimension which stays with you long after the music ends. For those of us who are uninitiated in the subtleties of chamber and nocturnes music Tomes makes the work feel accessible by giving a series of short introductions to the set pieces. To rapturous applause Tomes returns to play an encore a piece composed by John Field often played on the harp. Simply sublime.

Part of a series of afternoon recitals at St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral