MUSIC REVIEW : Bolet Returns for Recital at Hollywood Bowl

At 73, Jorge Bolet has come to that place in a distinguished career where he is more a keyboard aristocrat than a musical barnburner. Bolet still produces heat at the piano, but not always sparks.

What this meant, when the veteran pianist returned to Hollywood Bowl--replacing the reportedly ill Vladimir Ovchinnikov--Wednesday night was a performance of admirable control, contained virtuosity and thoughtful mood. Not the kind of conflagration a 30-year-old firebrand can set, but the steady, smoldering glow made by a mature fire-lighter.

It was not an evening spent in the rocking-chair, however. At the keyboard, Bolet retains that virile presence and commanding address that always characterized his appearance on the stage. His fingers move as quickly, efficiently and with the same, unerring marksmanship as ever. He may never sweat, but he still has the ability to excite an audience through the power and authority of his technique and musical intelligence.

Showpieces--Beethoven’s “Appassionata” Sonata and Liszt’s “Reminiscences de ‘Norma’ “-- provided the core of Bolet’s latest local recital. But, at the very beginning and end, the reflective musician took and held the stage.

Just as the Tuesday Philharmonic program had closed with some stylish and touching Mendelssohn, so did the Wednesday recital start with gloriously revived music by that still-underrated composer.

Bolet opened his agenda with the relatively unfamiliar Prelude and Fugue in E minor, Opus 35, followed immediately with the too-familiar “Rondo Capriccioso” in E. The pianist produced thoughtful and reconsidered readings in burnished pianistic colors.

At the opposite end of the event, the single encore turned out to be Leopold Godowsky’s transcription of the Adagietto from Bizet’s “L’Arlesienne,” as quiet and inward-looking a piece as one might ever hear in Hollywood Bowl.

In between, Bolet characteristically revealed the big bones of his repertory. A restrained but single-minded approach to the “Appassionata” yielded a total reading of classical reserve pointing up the composer’s contrasts.

Then, after intermission, a mellow, fluent and unpushy traversal of Cesar Franck’s “Prelude, choral et fugue” preceded Bolet’s awesomely effortless, gorgeously spun-out playing of the usually finger-busting “Norma” fantasy.