Having been told in glowing terms about Malaysia's wonderful new concert hall in the iconic Twin Towers. Pretensions decided she would use this trip to Malaysia to see something there. Unfortunately, her first choice, the Malaysian Philharmonic itself, clashed with her dinner schedule, so she was left with choice #2, Emanuel Ax.

After some hesitation (how Malaysian can a New York pianist be?), P decided to go to the concert spurred on by her innate sense of cheapness. She managed to secure cheap stall tickets right at the front at the last minute (55MYR is very cheap for Emanuel Ax; it's less than US$15).

The Twin Towers contain the usual faceless designer brand megamall and P got fairly lost trying to find her way to the concert hall. After lots of redirection, she found herself in the right section of the building. It is incredibly imposing, lots of glass and steel and sweeping staircases leading up to the obligatory glass chandeliers. P's not quite sure why the security guards have to be quite so obtrusive as they stand at every staircase turn and niche, but they do add to the sense of grandeur.

The seats are comfortable in the Concert Hall and the sound is nice and warm, probably due to all the wood used in its construction. The place was quite full for Mr Ax's renditions of Schubert and Liszt, even on a Tuesday night. P realised on taking her seat that her position was far from ideal as she was on the wrong side of the grand piano, and essentially under the stage, which meant she would catch occasional glimpses of Ax's face as he peered over the raised lid of the piano.

However, this became fairly incidental when Emanuel Ax walked in with determined stride and sat himself down at the piano, his cherubic face beaming at the audience. The man is a virtuoso. Every arpeggio rippled like glass, his legato sections sang and moods shifted like quicksilver with the music. However, P was near enough to the piano to realise that some strings were obviously giving problems; this was most obvious when Ax thundered out some fortessimo chords.

Of the music, P greatly enjoyed the Schubert Sonata #13 and the Liszt Mephisto Waltz for completely different reasons. The Schubert was all about happiness and contentment with its runs and happy skips in the third movement. The Liszt was all about a demonic lust, drawing on the Faust legend for its inspiration - great for tone painting. The Maestro obliged the thunderous applause at the end with a couple of encores, both by Chopin.

Thumbs up both for the venue (world-class) and the performer!