MUSIC REVIEW : Lubin in Piano Recital at LACMA

Familiar music, honestly and skillfully presented, marked the exceptionally satisfying recital by pianist Steven Lubin at the L.A. County Museum of Art’s Bing Theater on Wednesday.

There were twists, however. For one thing, the works presented--including Beethoven’s “Pathetique” Sonata and Chopin’s Opus 58--are so much a part of our cultural consciousness, so central to what used to be regarded as the standard repertory, that only superstars and advanced students present them in recital these days. Lubin is neither.

A smallish, connoisseur audience heard shapely offerings by a seasoned, unprepossessing professional who puts no overtly personal spin on the music, presenting it, rather, with secure technique and a directness of rhythm and phraseology that reflects analytical intelligence.

Lubin’s most personal touch was his employment of two instruments, a clear-voiced reproduction of a five-plus octave piano of the sort Beethoven might have employed for just such a work as the “Pathetique,” and a Yamaha grand for Chopin.

Earlier, on the period instrument, Lubin delivered fleet, crisply articulated Mozart, blessedly devoid of the freedom bordering on rhythmic license practiced by some of his historically informed colleagues: the variations on “Ah, vous dirais-je Maman” and the Sonata in B flat, K. 333.

He turned up the tension--and sonority--for Beethoven, exhibiting the instrument’s remarkably clear upper register, before turning to the Yamaha behemoth and Chopin.

With Chopin’s B-minor Sonata Lubin confirmed that he is not a period-instrument practitioner by default: He possesses the technique to do justice to the most demanding 19th-Century literature.

Listeners who never tire of superstar ego trips might have found Lubin’s emphasis on linear clarity and dramatic momentum to be unsettlingly modern. Or, perhaps, too Classical. They do have much in common.