A Concerted Effort to Tour : Pianist Andreas Bach Returns for Appearance With Pacific Symphony as Part of Vigorous 2-Continent Schedule

Music competitions lure participants with a sure-fire, albeit nerve-racking, ascent to a concert career. But German pianist Andreas Bach has never won--never even entered--a major international competition.

“Competitions are not the best,” he said during a telephone interview earlier this week. “It is hard to judge artistic achievements. You can only go by the technical aspect and by the obvious things. It is not possible to choose the best out of different artistic ideas--they are only different , but not better or worse.”

Instead, Bach has chosen a steadier, if less spectacular, path: constant concert appearances. This year alone, he will have traveled to the United States on four separate tours. During the current visit, he will fly straight from solo programs at the Newport Festival in Rhode Island to his Southern California return engagement with the Pacific Symphony tonight at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre. With additional European bookings, Bach will see his Hanover home only 2 1/2 months in a year.

The schedule may be grueling, but the pianist does not seem fazed. He is, after all, only approaching his 22nd birthday this month and--even separated by 3,000 miles of telephone line--exudes a quiet self-confidence and a youthful energy. Bach knows what he wants to do when he walks out on stage. He credits his artistic attitude to his teacher of the past 10 years, Karl Heinz Kammerling, whom he met in a national competition.

Bach has not sought out other teachers because he feels that he has found a very valuable relationship: “The most important thing is the personal relationship between the teacher and the pupil. He understands the pupil and can feel where the pupil can go, where his abilities are.” Through Kammerling, the pianist “discovered a way to express myself, and to understand how the composer expresses himself.”

Unlike the great Johann Sebastian, whose surname the pianist shares, Andreas Bach does not hail from a family of professional musicians. Nevertheless, a flute received as a gift on his fourth birthday triggered an already-obvious affinity for music. One year later, the boy began his first piano instruction under the tutelage of his mother, who had studied piano as a child.

Bach does not subject himself to a rigorous daily practice schedule. Speaking on a communal telephone in a dormitory on the Newport Festival host campus of Salve Regina College, the pianist revealed a sense of comfort with solitude--perhaps from his boyhood in the German countryside--that would lend itself to long hours at the piano. Still, he does not hold himself to a rigidly structured workday: “How long I practice depends on how much I have to and how much I like. I think you must have a certain amount of fun to play, otherwise it’s not worth it.”

Bach’s performance of Liszt’s First Concerto last summer, his debut with the Pacific Symphony, would indicate that it certainly is worth it. Indeed, since his 1987 New York debut at the 92nd Street Y--which New York Times reviewer Michael Kimmelman characterized as “auspicious”--the musician has been amassing an impressive collection of critical plaudits, almost all of them commenting on the contrast between the wisdom of mature interpretations and the age of the interpreter.

While one of his two recordings on the Novalis label concentrates entirely on Beethoven opuses--Sonatas Op. 7 and 31, No. 2 (“The Tempest”), and the Op. 126 Bagatelles--and, while he will perform the First Concerto of Beethoven on Saturday, Bach feels most at home with Romantic literature.

This is not surprising considering his avowed love of nature and the German classics coupled with a formidable technical prowess. Asked to mention some pieces that will attract his attention in the near future, he began his list with the Piano Concerto of Robert Schumann.

And, though Bach is eager to attack many Beethoven sonatas, the First Concerto of Brahms and the First Sonata of Schumann beckon alluringly.

Already, Bach has recorded Schumann’s “Davidsbundlertanze” (also for Novalis). He finds recording a new and demanding process: “I would never have thought it would be so different from a concert. The sound is so direct that you have to develop a new sense of sound when you play, because the microphones are directly in the piano. It gives you every detail of the sound, and that is much more dangerous. It’s hard--so you have to get some experience.”

Bach hopes that he has acquired enough recording experience to tackle Brahms’ Third Sonata soon. And when he does, this thoughtful young man will “try to get the idea and to express it. That’s always what I try to do.”

Andreas Bach will be soloist in Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto with the Pacific Symphony, led by Toshiyuki Shimada at 8:30 tonight at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, 8800 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine. Also on the Beethoven program: the “Leonore” Overture No. 3 and the Sixth Symphony (“Pastorale”). Tickets: $10.50-$37.50 (lawn seating available at $8.50). Information: (714) 740-2000.