MUSIC REVIEW : POGORELICH IN HIS FIRST RECITAL AT THE PAVILION

When Ivo Pogorelich first appeared here, at Hollywood Bowl in 1981, his name was scarcely known, even to piano buffs. Since then his name and fame have blossomed to an extent that the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was sold out for his first recital there on Tuesday night.

In a program definitely not oriented to popular taste, Pogorelich confirmed his position among the most versatile and most comprehensive of contemporary pianists. He touches all the standard bases and constantly takes off in search of more or less unexplored directions. He is definitely his own man.

He is a virtuoso of staggering accomplishment, but others command comparable techniques. Few of his contemporaries, however, exhibit such an exhaustive range of color, from Horowitzian thunder to sustained sounds that are perfectly clear but barely audible. His palette of expressive nuance seems infinite, yet now and then he strains the capacity of the piano to outermost limits. He has both a giant’s gentleness and a giant’s power and endurance. He can charm as easily as he can overwhelm.

It was an innocent conceit to open a huge program with Beethoven’s brief and all too familiar “Fuer Elise,” but a minor revelation to hear it so exquisitely shaped. Nor did he court popular taste by selecting Beethoven’s rarely heard two-movement Sonata in E minor, Opus 90, and unfolding it in a restrained and reflective manner.

To this listener, Bach’s English Suite No. 3 was the peak of the evening--marvelously controlled, microscopically clear, persuasive in the charm of the lighter movements and probing in the richly ornamented sarabande.

Some of Chopin’s B-flat-minor Sonata showed arguable elements: the intemperately restless first movement, the hurried Funeral March. Opposed to these were the tensely dramatic scherzo and the phenomenally realistic, whispering chatter by the graveside. The pianist turned to Chopin again in two of his five encores for heroic concepts of two Polonaises: C minor, Opus 40, No. 2; F-sharp minor, Opus 44.

Five of the 10 piano transcriptions Prokofiev made from his “Romeo and Juliet” ballet score ended the printed program with the touching pathos of the parting of the two lovers, contrasted to the flaring colors of earlier dance scenes.

In addition to the Chopin, the encores included two Scarlatti sonatas and Mozart’s “Turkish” Rondo.