Music : Pianist Murray Perahia at the Music Center

Because first impressions tend to last, Murray Perahia will, for some, remain the paragon of all that is poetic, contemplative and wistful. But his recital Saturday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion showed a pianist who neither rests on his laurels nor ceases to explore the many veins of the Romantic literature.

This time, for example, it was a heaven-storming virtuoso who went before the huge crowd, one who took on an agenda of dense works demanding high velocity, powerful drama and rhythmic propulsion. As a centerpiece the slight 43-year-old delivered Brahms’ cumbrous giant, the F-minor Sonata, plunging full force into this chordal tempest and, finally, conquering it with heroic flourish.

But Perahia is no musical chameleon. The intensity that shaped this dark, blood-pulsing performance also stands on the side of his better-known fragile lyricism. And one could hear both instances of rapturous communion in Chopin’s Nocturne in F, Opus 15, No. 1.

With his refined touch control and array of subtle inflections, the pianist found a wondrously moonstruck delicacy--only to rip into the vehemence that follows as though the reverie had not occurred.

One distinctly felt, however--here and elsewhere--Perahia’s emotional genuineness. Where others may merely manipulate the music, make it a vehicle for their virtuosity, he revealed a personal testament. His magical ending to Liszt’s “Waldesrauschen,” using an airy, weightless legato that belied its physical source, seemed spiritually induced.

But he began the evening in the real world of Haydn’s A-flat Sonata, informing it with a geniality, wit and warmth that only an artist of his caliber can apprehend.