MUSIC REVIEWS : Pianist Benedetto Lupo in Debut at Ambassador

Benedetto Lupo is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The Italian pianist enters the stage almost tentatively, addresses the piano indifferently, and plays. What one hears carries great authority and a compelling conviction, but is accomplished without sweat, effortfulness or showing-off. This “blessed wolf” gets his job done but does not call attention to himself.

Bronze medalist in the 1989 Van Cliburn International Competition in Fort Worth, Tex.,--having heard the gold-winner more than once, this listener throws up his hands at Lupo’s superiority in every area--the young man from Bari plays the piano with an elegance and achievement far beyond his 28 1/2 years (his true year of birth, contrary to incorrect information given in a program book this week, was 1963.). His mastery seems complete.

At his belated Ambassador Auditorium debut Thursday night, the modest virtuoso warmed up dutifully, if in great and commanding detail, with Brahms’ two Rhapsodies, Opus 79.

Then Lupo got to the real business of his first half, Schumann’s “Fantasiestucke,” Opus 12, wherein his poetic bent, pointed intelligence and on-target musical instincts created tone-pictures of emotional sweep and specific moodiness, the pianist never dawdling too long over a phrase, but appearing to hold back, in his masterly way, at appropriate moments.

Here, the pianist indicated the full range of his coloristic resources. After intermission, in the three pieces of Debussy’s “Images,” Book II, he probed it in detail.

One practically has to return to the heyday of Walter Gieseking to remember playing of such myriad tone-colors and mezzo-tints, to describe that entire sub-world of terraced dynamics and pianistic touch possible between this artist’s mezzo-forte and his pianississimo .

In utter control, Lupo provided a wash of sound that simultaneously blurred some passages and put others in high relief.

In “Cloches a travers les feuilles,” “Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut” and “Poissons d’or,” he delivered the kind of aggressive-caressive blend that distinguishes the Debussy-Ravel repertory from the rest of the piano literature.

It was ear-opening.

The remainder of the evening aimed high, went higher. Rachmaninoff’s sometimes maligned Second Sonata emerged an orgy of virtuosity and emotional urgency, Lupo playing all the notes (this was the second version) but clarifying their relationships and creating an apprehendable musical line for his listeners.

Lupo might have stopped there--though his audience remained stubbornly in its seats, awaiting any post-program bonuses he might have thrown its way. The reward came in two thrilling encores: a beautifully understated, almost seraphic, performance of Franz Liszt’s transcription of Schumann’s “Widmung,” and Prokofiev’s own mordant arrangement of “Masques,” from his ballet, “Romeo and Juliet.”