Music Reviews : Vladimir Feltsman in Recital Debut at the Pavilion

At one time--say, 50 years ago--a pianist of high promise might build a solid international career on good musical manners, good taste and a virtuoso technique.

No more. Such qualities, though never in abundant supply, have become simply the basic requirements for consideration in the worldwide keyboard sweepstakes. To them, one must bring additional virtues.

Vladimir Feltsman, the Soviet emigre pianist who made his local orchestral debut last spring playing Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, returned for his first local recital Monday night in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Music Center. He performed a difficult program in a masterful way. But he did not surpass the positive but limited impression given at his initial appearance here.

Except for a quarter-hour’s worth of exciting modernity at mid-recital, Feltsman produced workmanlike, rather than compelling, performances.

His accomplishments in Beethoven’s F-minor Sonata (Opus 2, No. 1) proved genuine and admirable, but less than thrilling. Reviving the composer’s often neglected first essay in the form should have been a more revelatory experience than Feltsman’s careful and circumspect approach netted.

And the pianist’s resourceful but uncharismatic reading of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” after intermission merely failed to find, re-create and project the kaleidoscopic tone-painting in the familiar suite. As far as he went, Feltsman gave a fair depiction of each separate item. But breadth of vision and clear delineation of all the hues available to the modern keyboardist never informed the total. Few performances of this work emerge this clean; most offer more interest.

With three excerpts from Olivier Messiaen’s “Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jesus,” Feltsman displayed the kind of colorful musical thinking and imaginative sound-differentiation missing in the rest of this performance.

In response to loud approbation from his audience, Feltsman offered at the end of the evening a single encore in a chorale-prelude of Bach transcribed by Alexander Siloti.