Music Reviews : Peter Vinograde in Piano Recital at Caltech

Judging by his name, his style of piano playing and the sort of program he favors, Peter Vinograde might well be taken for an exotic apparition from some remote corner of the earth.

But far from it; according to the program for his recital in Ramo Auditorium at Caltech, Vinograde hails from Ames, Iowa. Currently he resides in New York, from where he seems to have mopped up a large number of important competitions, domestic and foreign.

Vinograde is not like any other pianist you might care to mention. He is a tornado, a cyclone, a catastrophic force of nature. He constantly threatens the life and welfare of the Steinway he plays. Only rarely does he relax enough to coax winning sounds from his instrument. Yet as he played Thursday night, he seemed to be very nearly one of a kind.

He started out soberly enough as a contrapuntist laying bare the structure of Bach’s Prelude and Fugue on a theme of Albinoni, and all 15 of Bach’s Two-Part Inventions with striking clarity and an occasional vivid moment of contrast.

The larger, volcanic aspects of this playing were prefaced gently by Brahms’ Ballade in D, Opus 10, No. 4, leading to an earth-moving rendition of Book I of Brahms’ Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Opus 35. It was playing always musical, always intelligent and panoramic in scope. There was no question of technique, really; the fire and fury consumed everything in sight.

Vinograde showed some comparative relaxation in the three “Posthumous” Etudes of Chopin, and in the E-major Scherzo.

Then, there was exquisitely sultry playing in “Jerez” from Book IV of Albeniz’s “Iberia,” but the heavens came crashing down again in a Fantasy-Impromptu by the unfamiliar Jere Hutcheson, an explosive mixture of Cage, Bartok, Prokofiev and others.

It would be chancy to recommend Vinograde as a role model, but for doing his own thing in his own way he has few peers. He shocks, but he also entertains.