Music and Dance Reviews : Helene Wickett in Recital

You can play some of the repertory all of the time and all of the repertory some of the time, but you can’t play all of the repertory all of the time.

Or so it was, at least, for pianist Helene Wickett Wednesday night in Bing Theater of the County Museum of Art. In a recital sponsored by Pro Musicis that celebrated the 15th anniverary of her Los Angeles debut, Wickett found herself in touch with her personal keyboard Muse only during the second half of her demanding program.

Wickett owns real technical resource and endurance, as demonstrated in works of Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy and Dutilleux. Her correct, consistent musicality, rhythmic precision and manual dexterity aren’t flustered by demands of speed or harmonic density. She maintains an admirable level of accuracy in troublesome passages.

But correct and accurate aren’t necessarily absorbing, much less inspiring. Opening with Brahms’ eight Piano Pieces, Opus 76, followed by Beethoven’s 15 “Eroica” Variations and Fugue, Opus 35, Wickett offered cleanly articulated runs, glittery staccatos, clear inner voices, powerful octave scales and solid, substantial piano tone.

But she seemed to lack musical temperament and charisma to hold the stage and carry two such lengthy, episodic and problematic sequences of pieces, especially back to back. This was pristinely passionless playing, projecting no feeling of involvement or identification with the music, no notion of what it means to her .

Through some mysterious alchemy a different artist emerged after intermission, as Wickett’s meticulous, atmospheric reading of Debussy’s “Six epigraphes antiques” emerged as personal expression in a full pallette of colors, perfectly weighted dynamically--and including some exquisite soft playing.

A tour de force, however, was Henri Dutilleux’s 1947 “Sonate.” Wickett met its relentless technical demands, abstract intensity, lyrical urgency and exploration of sonorities with unflagging brilliance, eloquence and stamina.