Music Reviews : Pianist Rudolf Firkusny in Bowl Recital

Whether at Hollywood Bowl, the Greek Theatre or your local, downtown park, outdoor piano recitals pose a risk for both players and audiences. The risks taken by Rudolf Firkusny and an enthusiastic audience of 6,112 in Hollywood Bowl this week were compounded by the familiar virtues of the veteran Czech-American pianist, and by the program he chose to play.

At 80, an age he reached in February, the elegant Firkusny seems to command stolidly the same set of qualities that have marked his many visits here since the 1940s: an admirable and utterly reliable facility at the piano; a solid and never brittle tone-production; good taste; an eclectic repertory.

These add up to a most polished keyboard presence, one which, though it flirts dangerously with monochromatic sound and artistic shallowness, nevertheless creates music sometimes engaging and pleasing to hear.

Tuesday night, Firkusny’s manner, plus the mammoth amphitheater (which can hold up to 18,000 people in Cahuenga Pass) and a program of mostly intimate music by Mozart and Beethoven conspired against success. With a performer apparently not always paying attention and the normal distractions of alfresco listening--though on this night with a minimum of aerial passers-by--the event failed to, uh, fly.

Not that the pianist’s performance would have been hailed had it been played indoors. There was as much musical inattentiveness, flaccid rhythms and general vagueness in this recital to irritate the curmudgeon in any experienced listener.

Firkusny does not precipitate tempos, like a youngster; he precipitates phrases, in the way of one impatient to get to the end.

He does not nurture a score, lay it out as if for the first time, give an overview and caress the details. With great polish, but little emotional involvement, he pushes his way through a piece yet does not re-create its architectonic superstructure. As a result, some of his sonata movements seemed very long indeed.

Mixing Beethoven and Mozart as one might apricots and grapes, the veteran pianist began with a distracted run-through of the Opus 126 Bagatelles, followed by an unpointed reading of the C-minor Sonata, Opus 10, No. 1--a piece he last played here in 1949--and the Sonata in C, K. 330.

After intermission, there was the C-minor Sonata, K. 457, and, to close, the “Waldstein” Sonata.

In K. 457, only the slow movement achieved a Mozartean repose, as well as musical incisiveness. In Opus 53, a lack of direction seemed everywhere present; somehow, all those pretty notes failed to constitute a statement--as if a carpenter had made neat stacks of lumber but failed to build the structure.

After the program proper, Firkusny graciously gave his audience two encores: Liszt’s “Consolation,” No. 1, and a Concert Etude by Smetana.