MUSIC REVIEWS : Badura-Skoda Gives a Provocative Recital

An admirable musical companion, if not a charismatic one, Paul Badura-Skoda is an infrequent visitor to Southern California. Though he has appeared as soloist with orchestra a number of times in our bailiwick, the pianist from Vienna has given only two recitals in the Los Angeles area since 1956.

Now a youthful-looking 65, Badura-Skoda returned to us Sunday night in the acoustically pleasing environment of refurbished Thorne Hall at Occidental College in Eagle Rock, and gave much pleasure. He is not a world-beater, and his pianism, for all its virtues of honesty, solidity, easy command and sensible rhetoric, does not often penetrate to the heart of musical matters.

Still, his many skills and civilized performances should not be discounted. In a career bridging five decades, Badura-Skoda has produced memorable performances, written books considered valuable and taught talented and grateful students. He is a cherishable musician.

But not always an interesting one. His limited coloristic resources sometimes seem confined to harsh or pedestrian sounds; his arsenal of dynamics lacks breadth. As a player of the great Viennese masterpieces--on this occasion, he essayed only major works of Haydn, Schubert, Mozart and Beethoven--he is a literalist rather than one who offers insights or revelations.

A lack of poetry and imagination, then, characterized the largest portion of this recital, given on an apparently excellent instrument provided by the local Bosendorfer dealer. The piano seemed to have more colors than the pianist, who seldom probed the area of pianissimo, but remained stolidly in the mundane and unnuanced neighborhood of mezzo-forte throughout.

What was missing? In the program-closer, Beethoven’s Opus 111 Sonata, the anger and frustrations of the opening movement, the seraphic resignation and transcendent repose of the finale.

In Haydn’s F-minor Variations, that subtext of emotional release just beneath the worldy but beauteous surface. In Schubert’s B-flat Sonata, the pungency and tragedy in almost every accidental--for example, the all-important E-natural at the beginning of the second full bar.

In Mozart’s C-minor Fantasy, a musical scenario--expressed or merely organic--that would have tied together disparate elements in an enigmatic whole; some sense of continuity must propel this piece, or it merely sits in the ear, undigested, as it were.

An appreciative audience, which had listened attentively through the performance, seemed to demand an encore from the artist, but got none.