MUSIC REVIEWS : Horacio Gutierrez Plays Haydn, Liszt

A virtuoso talent in the hands of a young pianist can be very different given 20 years to mellow.

Take Horacio Gutierrez, for instance, who, when he burst upon the scene with the Liszt B-minor Sonata as an early calling card, was a red-hot firebrand producing the kind of excitement that made the blood pump and the brow sweat.

Bringing the same piece along to his recital Thursday at Ambassador Auditorium, the Cuban-born musician proved that some things change, while others do not--in what most of us, applying the notion to general matters, accept as a fair trade-off.

To be sure, Gutierrez has lost none of his prodigious technique on Lisztian turf. He still lets go with a machine-like power in the combustible double octaves and then, increasing their speed, kicks into higher gear--all of this without note-clotting or blurring of tone.

But having been there so many times he now brings a sense of inevitability to the moment, as in a 25th consecutive roller-coaster ride.

The bonus, however, came in the greater nostalgia of the arching contemplative sections, which he graced with fully let-out rubato.

The evening’s deepest satisfaction rested not with Liszt, though, but in the opening item, Haydn’s C-major Sonata, No. 50, and that’s something one might not have said earlier about Gutierrez.

Here he savored the stylistic niceties via clarified textures and bright, clean tone, showing off an extraordinary independence of hands and fingers so that by subtle changes in weighting every detail emerged.

By way of crisp articulation Haydn’s alternating voices--the gruff and genial and the arguments between them--could be heard. It was as though the pianist had put his ear to the ground, such was the care with which he projected each nuance of the message, each quick turn the conversation took.

Similar sensitivities, translated to the Romantic style, materialized with Schumann’s “Davidsbundlertanze.” Gutierrez dug into the notes for the big sound and headlong momentum required by the heroic Florestan, while turning to a feathery legato touch for Eusebius’ languor.

True, a degree of abandon was sacrificed. But taste and balance were the benefits.