In the evening, I attend a 'twilight concert' in the Hilton Plaza, a vast gleaming atrium with marble floors, glass and steel walls with cylindrical lifts whizzing up and down in them. In the midst of all this space-age chic, two Japanese girls dressed like 1930s film stars are playing duets on a Steinway grand piano. Their ballgowns are sugar pink and lime green, with lots of sticking-out petticoats. They play Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite and Fauré's Dolly Suite, and one of them also plays solo Debussy. Once again I'm struck by how Japanese pianists manage to make Western music sound Japanese. How do they do it? They play so well, and yet there's a hint of robotics about the way each phrase goes on to the next, as though they feel it would be too self-indulgent to let the music (or themselves) breathe. The two girls are thrilled to be complimented after their concert by a pianist from 'Rondon'. << less