Music Reviews : Fountain Makes U.S. Debut at Ambassador

Ian Fountain had a right to seem a little shy and a little gangly, a mere 20-year-old striding onto the stage at Ambassador Auditorium on Monday night. This was, after all, his U.S. debut.

But winners of prestigious competitions--in this case, the 1989 Artur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv--are already seasoned by harrowing rounds of outperforming their rivals. The bloom of youth often leaves their cheeks before its time.

Not so this lanky, fresh-faced Briton, who still looks like a chorister at New College, Oxford.

Rest assured, however, that his playing is that of a virtuoso. And by evening’s end--after a temperature-raising account of Chopin’s A-flat Polonaise (an encore)--came the unmistakable flush of triumph.

Nor was there anything tentative throughout the oddly put-together program that included Schubert. Whether laying out four Scarlatti sonatas immaculately, or imparting full flourish to Liszt’s B-minor Ballade, Fountain put himself completely to the task.

One could hardly blame him for wanting to show off his champion’s wares--for one, a Horowitzian ability to strike bunches of keys at high velocity and still sound each note with singular clarity. The Ballade, and Chopin’s B-minor Sonata provided such opportunities, as well as a gauge of his youthful directness and exuberance.

To Schubert’s B-major Sonata he brought the music’s life force, its gentleness and the soul of a skipping child, without yet grasping the Andante’s seraphic quality.

For now, the pianist seemed content to display his startling technical gifts. But Fountain leaves the hint of another sensibility, one to lure listeners to a return visit.