LYDIA ARTYMIW GIVES PIANO RECITAL AT BING

In a world brimming with piano talent, there is no predicting where or when lightning is going to strike. With little warning, it flashed upon Lydia Artymiw in the third event of the Pro Musicis season at the Bing Theater of the County Museum of Art Wednesday night and disclosed an important pianist.

Artymiw--Philadelphia-born of Ukrainian descent--is important because she combines so many diverse qualities in such easily managed proportions. She is authoritative in many styles; she wields power and delicacy with equal ease; she is securely equipped with technique; she feels deeply and knows how to communicate her feelings. She stirred her audience repeatedly.

The pianist played Mozart’s little skeletal Sonata in B-flat, K. 570, without mincing matters and let it sound charming without recourse to fussiness.

She drew the elusive moods of Schumann’s “Kreisleriana” on a broad, masterfully controlled scale. One might object to a bit too much churning in the boisterous moments, but it was all integrated in a way that made it seem logical and concise, and the tender Schumannesque poetry sang with a natural flow of well-modulated tone. It was a performance of no loose ends and a wealth of insight.

The program closed with familiar names attached to unfamiliar music. In Tchaikovsky’s Twelve Variations on an Original Theme, Artymiw discovered a piece pianistically grateful and musically attractive. Under her hands, Scriabin’s universally neglected Sonata No. 1 intimated the composer’s later aspirations and hurled some dramatic bolts of impressive intensity.

For an encore: a wistful little Lyric Piece by Grieg.