MUSIC AND DANCE REVIEWS : Pollini Returns in Beethoven/Schubert Program

In a world in flux, some things never change. The utter seriousness, complete honesty and musical clarity in the piano-playing of Maurizio Pollini, for instance.

The justly celebrated Italian musician returned to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Music Center Wednesday night, having promised a provocative, Beethoven/Liszt/Boulez agenda.

In the event, his recital consisted of three sonatas, Schubert’s in G, D. 894, and Beethoven’s Opus 78 and Opus 57.

Given the level of accomplishment and probity being offered here, only a fool could be angry at the program change; a veteran concertgoer could, however, be disappointed at having to miss Boulez’s too-seldom heard Second Sonata.

Among living pianists, Pollini stands practically alone in producing that combination of pristine, emotionally unfettered and technically irreproachable performances. With every visit, his playing seems to bring together again a scrupulous stylishness, finicky detailing and breathtaking lucidity. His near-perfection is not inhuman, however; his readings breathe and flow, ebb and rise, reach peaks.

The high point of this particular recital may have been its first half, Schubert’s beloved G-major Sonata, wherein the pianist from Milan took every repeat and still made the totality seem inexorable and too-brief.

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Among other amazing correspondences in this virtually definitive performance was its return, at some place in every movement, to that level of pianissimo at which it began. For the courage and digital control to summon up that level in this large auditorium in the first place, one has to admire Pollini.

Here, and in the two Beethoven works, the F-sharp-major Sonata and the “Appassionata,” the musical rewards arrived on schedule.

But not predictably. Opus 78, for instance, did not emerge with its often-mysterious, enigmatic personality; the pianist gave it, or, rather, brought out, its straightforward, slightly bemused, face, one apparently without a dark side--as we have sometimes thought.

And Opus 57, its dynamics perfectly in place, came out, in Pollini’s reconsideration, not melodramatic or sweaty, not a showcase for the player’s expressivity, but honestly, stylishly dramatic: its climaxes growing naturally out of its musical materials.

The relentless drive of the finale, after the stoicism of the slow movement, thus produced as exciting and irresistible a conclusion to the well-known piece as can be imagined.

After a prolonged ovation, Pollini bestowed upon his large and vociferously responsive audience two, perfectly appropriate encores: the E-flat Bagatelle, Opus 126, No. 3, by Beethoven, and Schubert’s familiar A-flat Impromptu, Opus 142, No. 2.