ANTON KUERTI: AN ECLECTIC PIANIST

When he was last in the Los Angeles area, nine years and one month ago, Anton Kuerti played one of the more memorable programs of that season, a Schubert recital of exceptional stylistic authority and splendid sound profile.

Why, then, hasn’t he been back before now?

“Well, ah, the business of music in North America,” the 47-year-old pianist said in a telephone interview from his home in Toronto, “is, well, a Byzantine complex.”

Kuerti will return here Thursday night for a recital at Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena. On his eclectic program will be music by three composers he has become closely associated with: Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann.

“I recorded the 32 sonatas of Beethoven in 1975,” he said, “And have played the cycle several times since then. More recently, I have played the entire Schubert sonata cycle. And, in the past few seasons, I have been performing the Beethoven concertos (he recorded them with Andrew Davis and the Toronto Symphony) and the Choral Fantasy.

“Just the other night, in Massey Hall here, I played the one remaining concerted work of Beethoven I had never performed before, the piano version of the Violin Concerto.” That performance was with the Kitchener-Waterloo (Ontario) Symphony, conducted by Raffi Armenian.

The pianist’s Ambassador program promises a smorgasbord of 19th-Century masterpieces: Beethoven’s Sonata in F-sharp, Opus 78; Schumann’s First Sonata, the one in F-sharp minor, Opus 11; Brahms’ Eight Pieces, Opus 76, and (being repeated from his 1977 appearance here) Schubert’s “Wanderer” Fantasy.

Though he has played both the Beethoven and Schubert sonata cycles, Kuerti--who was born in Vienna, came to the United States at age 4, moved to Toronto in the late 1960s and now maintains dual U.S.-Canadian citizenship--said his favorite composer is Schumann, whose entire output “I have not played--yet.” One asks about which Schumann edition he prefers, and about the place of Schumann’s pianist-wife, Clara, in the scheme of Schumann editions.

“Well,” he said, “Sometimes it seems, when one researches the history of Schumann’s works, that Clara really didn’t know who she was married to. Did you know, for instance, that at one point after Schumann’s death, she actually asked (Joseph) Joachim to write a new finale to the Piano Concerto?”

Kuerti said he often chooses Robert Schumann’s second version of his own works, passing up the two different Clara Schumann editions and usually ignoring Robert’s first versions.

“Sometimes those versions are the more interesting and exotic--also a little bit crazy. One has to choose.”

A POSTSCRIPT: Dennis Russell Davies, the 41-year-old American conductor who has been Generalmusikdirektor of the Wuerttemberg State Theater in Stuttgart, West Germany, since 1980, has been appointed general music director of the City of Bonn, effective with the 1987-88 season.

In 18 months, Davies will replace Gustav Kuhn, the controversial conductor who last held the post in Bonn. Davies’ contract in Beethoven’s hometown will run for five years, according to his New York publicist; his duties as chief music administrator in Bonn will include artistic directorship of the Orchestra of the Beethoven-Hall, all concert programming in the city, leadership of the Beethoven Festival held every three years and responsibility for “New Music Days.” Beginning with the season 1988-89, he will also assume duties as music director of the Bonn Opera.

In the United States, Davies’ will continue to serve as principal conductor at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (summer home of the Philadelphia Orchestra), music adviser of the American Composers Orchestra in New York City, and music director of the Cabrillo Festival in Aptos, Calif.

AROUND TOWN THIS WEEK: Tonight at 8 in Ambassador Auditorium, soprano Marilyn Horne returns, with Martin Katz again at the piano, for a Pasadena recital . . . . Monday night, also at Ambassador, David Buechner is the recitalist. Winner of the 1984 Gina Bachauer International Competition in Salt Lake City, pianist Buechner will play music by Mozart, Schubert, Janacek, Martinu and Chabrier. . . . At the Los Angeles Philharmonic, guest conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy concludes his two-week visit to the Pavilion of the Music Center with a Dvorak/Brahms program, Friday night at 8 and next Sunday at 2:30. That program lists the “New World” Symphony and Brahms’ Violin Concerto, with Itzhak Perlman the soloist. . . . Pianist Juliana Markova appears in Murphy Recital Hall at Loyola Marymount University in Westchester, Friday night at 8:30. . . . And Friday and Saturday, both nights at 8, the Murray Louis Dance Company and the Dave Brubeck Quartet collaborate in joint performances in Royce Hall, UCLA, those performances to culminate in “Four Brubeck Pieces.”

DANCE PEOPLE: Philip Semark, formerly an administrator with San Francisco Ballet, Joffrey Ballet and the Spoleto Festival USA, will join Dallas Ballet as executive director and general manager, effective March 1.

Jacques d’Amboise, founder of the National Dance Institute--organized to teach young people the joys of dancing--is going to China for two weeks this month to instruct about 50 Chinese children. According to Karen Salerno of the institute, the contingent of children will come to this country in May to prepare for D’Amboise’s annual “Event of the Year” in Madison Square Garden. The title of this year’s show: “Digging Our Way to China.”