Meltdown Queen Elizabeth Hall, London 19 June 2011

“Please take your seats in the auditorium, as this evening’s performance is about to begin.” Sent scurrying into the Queen Elizabeth Hall by Sir Ian McKellen’s stentorian tones, we bury ourselves deep into the QEH’s welcoming black leather seats just as the lights goes down. I bolt down half a glass of the overpriced pseudo-Coke sold to me minutes earlier, and instantly regret it.

The lights dim, and the tableau remains lit by only six small lights – five blue and one orange – as dry ice swirls around moodily in eerie little clouds. Out onto the stage strides Reinier van Houdt, a curious and beguiling mixture of diffident and confident. Pale, thin (picture Christian Bale in The Machinist without the Method humour by-pass) and barefoot, the Dutch pianist sits down at the black Steinway Grand and greets us with a disarming

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