Music Reviews : Louis Lortie’s Fingers Fly at Ambassador Recital

Perhaps the youngest of the important Canadian pianists to visit our shores regularly, Louis Lortie at 32--an age he reaches today, by the way--promises a lengthy and distinguished career.

As Lortie showed incontrovertibly in his third Ambassador Auditorium visit Thursday night, that career might take one of several paths.

It could concentrate on the classical repertory of the first Viennese school, as represented on this occasion by two of Beethoven’s more exposing sonatas, those dubbed “Waldstein” and “Lebewohl.”

It could follow a Lisztian ideal, as exemplified in three pieces by that composer, the two “Valses Oubliees” and that exhilarating transcription of the Waltz from “Faust,” and also by both of Lortie’s evening-closing encores, Chopin’s C-sharp-minor Etude, Opus 10, No. 4, and an excerpt from Stravinsky’s own “Petrushka” arrangements.

Or it could emulate the late Walter Gieseking--who died three years before Lortie was born--whose liquid performances of Impressionist music was recalled in the younger musician’s fluid playing of Ravel’s two sardonic “A la maniere” pieces and “La Valse.”

Whatever path young Lortie chooses, he ought to succeed. He has personality, strong feelings about the music he plays, the technical resources to express those feelings, and--in a world where most young pianists cultivate only relationships with microphones--a palpable regard for his listeners.

At this stage, his Beethoven sonatas meet a high standard for authority, probity and elegance.

In terms of sound alone, the pianist’s reconsidered and Olympian playing of the “Waldstein” sonata held the listener completely, through its straight and single-minded course. His approach to the “Lebewohl” sonata became less extroverted and more thoughtful than some, but no less deeply felt.

Similarly, Lortie’s sanguine approach to both Liszt and Ravel created in the Pasadena hall a rare sense of fun--a sense built from wit, charm and intelligence--the auditorium seldom contains.

The handsome pianist, flying over the keyboard and swooping down to hit all targets accurately, was clearly having the time of his life. In the process, needless to say, his audience became the beneficiaries of all that fun.