MUSIC AND DANCE REVIEWS : MOON AT ROYCE HALL

It took a bit of warming up, plus an intermission repair job on the house Steinway, for Ick Choo Moon to reach the peak of his powers in his Royce Hall recital Sunday night. But once he had hit his stride, Moon put himself in a special class.

Born in Korea, trained in Canada and the United States and the winner of international competitions, Moon seems to be launched on what should be an important career. He never lacks for power, his facility is notable even in this virtuosic age, and his mastery of tone color is vivid and evocative.

The sole disappointment of the evening was the Bach-Busoni Chaconne, which veered more toward Busoni than toward Bach, and which betrayed sounds that might have been harsh even on a piano in perfect condition--the UCLA Steinways seem perpetually to be in a convalescent state.

Once that hazard was past, the pianist offered persuasive Romantic credentials in lustrous performances of Chopin.

Two aspects of Liszt, the brooding of the “Sonetto 104 del Petrarca” and the bravura of the “Transcendental” Etude No. 10, were equally well served.

Even with so burdensome a repertory to maintain, Moon apparently found time to learn and brilliantly perform the First Sonata by the resident composer Roy Travis. It was a rewarding task, for Travis writes music that is accessible without looking backward and that propounds interesting ideas in a grateful pianistic idiom.

The program climaxed in the three pieces of Ravel’s “Gaspard de la Nuit,” flawlessly mastered as to technique and reveling in a glittering array of prismatic color.