MUSIC REVIEW : Pommier Piano Recital at Ambassador Auditorium

Sometimes, stage demeanor means nothing.

In the case of pianist Jean-Bernard Pommier, however, it seemed to exemplify his performance style, relaxed, unexcitable, thoroughly professional. The French musician opened this season’s piano series at Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena Thursday with a thinking person’s program of Debussy and Beethoven.

For most of the evening, what seemed the foremost concern to, and distinction of, Pommier was tone production, more specifically, an avoidance of the bright, brittle and bashing in favor of rich, well blended hues.

He showed himself capable of applying varieties of color and articulation to the music at hand, but these tended almost exclusively towards the warm and soft-edged portions of the spectrum. His virtuosity proved unruffled even in the most difficult patches.

This made for decidedly mixed results. Most disappointing were the Debussy pieces, “Estampes,” “Pour le piano” and four Preludes. Clean and surely outlined playing, glowing color and nuance abounded in his readings; brilliance, sharp characterization, and a sense of quirkiness did not.

While he could bring feelings of expectancy to introductory or dimly lit passages, he rarely followed them through to their implied ends--climaxes remained low-key, weighty but neither driven nor broad in conception. And despite subtlety of touch and expressive rhythm, one seldom felt a melody’s arch or forward impulses.

The concert opened and closed with music which seemed more suited to Pommier’s personality. To Beethoven’s Sonata No. 24 he brought an apt feeling of leisure, with gently singing lines and poised execution; to Chopin’s Waltz, Opus 70, No. 2--the sole encore--gracious flexibility and elegant emotion.

His account of Beethoven’s “Waldstein” Sonata, too, was effective in its way, especially in his breathlessly urgent reading of the Introduzione. In the outer movements he offered neatness and fleetness, but, in denying full-bore brilliance to bravura elements, missed much of the music’s point.