MUSIC REVIEWS : PIANIST CHIEN IN PASADENA RECITAL

Alec Chien is no newcomer to this area. But the young pianist did not make nearly as strong an impression in November with the Long Beach Symphony as he did in Pasadena on Monday evening, closing the Gold Medal series at Ambassador Auditorium.

In recital, Chien revealed an uncommon flair for accent and color. The Juilliard-trained musician attends carefully to narrative nuance, working with an assured control of dynamics and articulation which never sounded studied or fussy.

Schumann’s “Carnaval” was a case in point. Few pianists seem as concerned as Chien was with characterization and sheer storytelling, allusive and elliptic as it must be. His skills admirably met the protean demands, creating excitement where familiarity so often breeds ennui.

Similar virtues were apparent in Three Movements from Stravinsky’s “Petrushka,” plus galvanic jolts of sheer pianistic sparkle. Chien dropped his share of notes in other works, but it was clarity as much as speed that dazzled in the opening “Danse Russe.”

Chien played Beethoven’s Sonata in A-flat, Opus 110, almost as a single, rapt movement. There was brio in the Allegro, and intellectual integrity in the Fugue. But Chien infused the whole with a reflective, slightly subdued spirit, brightening only at the very end.

A tie that binds in Bartok’s Improvisations, Opus 20, eluded Chien, who left them as finely sculpted doodles lacking coherence. Ned Rorem’s Three Barcarolles flirt with redundancy and cocktail-lounge banality, but Chien wrapped them up as a purposeful, expressive unit.

The pianist seemed to feel that this generous program was enough in itself, but the enthusiastic response drew him back for an encore, a routinely dreamy account of Chopin’s Nocturne in D-flat.