MUSIC REVIEW : KLIEN GIVES RECITAL AT AMBASSADOR

What more fitting time for a Mozart/Schubert program than on one of the three days separating the composers’ birthdays?

And which more qualified specialist in the works of these supremely Aquarian musicians than Walter Klien, a pianist of broad purview but particularly Austrian (he was born in Graz) sensibilities?

Returning to Ambassador Auditorium, Pasadena, on the eve of Schubert’s birthday Thursday night, Klien surpassed even his own splendid standards in a program encompassing Mozart’s Sonatas in A, K. 331, and C minor, K. 457, and the “Posthumous” A-major Sonata of Schubert.

Indeed, until the jolting first encore--Stravinsky’s “Circus Polka,” under the Schubertian circumstances, very unwelcome--one longtime Klien-watcher found this evening a high point in the Austrian pianist’s visits here over the past 11 years.

Strongly contrasted yet perfectly stylish, his playing of the two Mozart works outlined their emotional profiles, probed their musical content and produced a finely drawn account of the details that illuminate them.

A more lyrical yet motivated reading of the deceptively untroubled theme and variations in K. 331 would be hard to imagine--or a more spare yet faceted realization of the opening portion of the C-minor Sonata. In the latter, Klien made the Adagio the centerpiece of his concept, its long lines, broad scope and wide dynamic palette apparently including the surrounding quick movements. Seldom has the entire piece emerged so naturally unified.

Without ever calling attention to himself, Klien then produced Schubert’s final A-major Sonata in all its pristine clarity, articulation, songfulness and musical thrust. Every one of the familiar detours seemed to converge in his irresistible overview; all the interruptions seemed inevitable.

Klien went on to three encores: the “Circus Polka,” a Sonata in C by Domenico Scarlatti and Brahms’ A-flat Waltz.