MUSIC REVIEW : Prize Winner Shows No Hint of Passion

Kevin Kenner, the Coronado pianist who has won a slew of awards and was the sole American semifinalist in last year’s Van Cliburn competition, played an unsettling recital Friday night at San Diego State University. This was his first local appearance since the Texas competition; in the ensuing months the 26-year-old musician has been pursuing further musical studies in Germany.

That Kenner can pull off a technical tour de force is beyond question. From his opening Haydn Sonata in C Major, he displayed a clean, facile digital prowess that kept his fingers hovering over the keyboard with balletic grace. It was easy to explain his evident restraint in this gracious two-movement sonata to a proper appreciation of Classical aesthetics.

However, when his Chopin “Andante spinato and Grande Polonaise brillante” seemed equally circumspect and monochromatic, it raised serious questions. Kenner’s brilliance in the “Grande Polonaise” was cold and impersonal, without a hint of passion, and eliminating the passion from Chopin is like purging the blues of melancholy. Why is this able artist hiding behind a musical facade of Victorian politesse?

Not surprisingly, he strolled elegantly through Tchaikovsky’s Theme and Variations in F Major, crafting a series of precise miniatures. But he did not make a convincing case for restoring this infrequently played opus to the recital stage.

Kenner completed his SDSU program with Rachmaninoff’s Second Sonata in B-flat Minor, a large-scaled work full of typical Russian pathos. It was Kenner’s strongest offering, and it almost pulled him out of his reclusive shell. If the slow middle movement was less than brooding, Kenner at least conjured a deeply pensive mood.

Kenner’s recital inaugurated the university’s new Steinway concert grand, although it was heard in a pair of programs last weekend. The instrument displayed a certain gravity as well as focus in the critical upper ranges, but at crucial fortes it added an unwelcome rattle that will only be desirable for 20th-Century scores that demand “prepared” piano.