Dance and Music Reviews : Pianist Jon Klibonoff Makes Local Recital Debut

Gearing the program to his audience was apparently not a major consideration for Jon Klibonoff, whose local recital debut took place Wednesday at the County Museum of Art Bing Theater under Pro Musicis auspices.

For one thing, the pianist’s mostly senior crowd mistakenly headed out for intermission while another piece remained to be played. And the agenda, which included Schoenberg’s brilliantly knotty Suite, Opus 25, went on somewhat longer than desirable. Not canny planning.

Yet Klibonoff began impressively. To locate both the piety and heartiness of Bach’s B-flat Partita without romanticizing it, he relied on flexible tempos and emotionally meaningful dynamics. Moreover, he boasted an ample technique here and elsewhere, as well as the power to elucidate the diverse styles represented.

He’s not alone, however, in encountering trouble with Schumann. The C-major Fantasy suffered both from his occasional lack of presence and tenuous connections from episode to episode. Even the grandly passionate opening theme had too many flyaway sounds and imbalances to be compensated by the gorgeously limpid line in the slow movement.

But Allen Gimbel’s Suite, commissioned by Klibonoff, provided him an eminently attractive mix of high-energy percussion and momentous lyricism. The French offerings by Faure and Debussy also found the pianist in his thoroughly agreeable metier.