MUSIC REVIEWS : Young Virtuosos Take Stage at Ambassador Auditorium

Talent takes many guises; so does musical achievement. The three budding virtuosos who appeared on the Gold Medal series event at Ambassador Auditorium Monday night proved that, again.

Pavel Sporcl, born in 1973 in the Czech Republic, showed himself to be a most gifted and accomplished violinist. His demeanor may be modest, but his technique and musicality comprise abundant resources.

Pianist George S. Lopez is a native New Yorker raised in Central America and trained in Connecticut and Paris, among other locales. Swedish pianist Jan Biel, born 1975, like his colleagues at this performance, is a prizewinner of numerous competitions and a veteran of international tours.

These three, traveling under the unwieldy name of Laureates of Holland Music Sessions World Tour 1994--the title refers to a summer conservatory all have attended--gave a demonstration of their present virtuosity in a generous program at the Pasadena showplace. The eclectic agenda contained music by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Copland, Saint-Saens and Liszt.

Lopez, probably the oldest of the showcased players, certainly showed the greatest maturity and musical perspective, especially in his playing of Copland’s Piano Variations (1930), which emerged compelling in rhetoric and continuity, kaleidoscopic in color.

Sporcl’s particular moment of glory was the Fourth Solo Sonata of Eugene Ysaye, the mechanical thickets of which he sailed through without hesitation, all the while producing a beautiful sound and genuine eloquence.

At 19, Biel has the furthest to go in overall musical growth. Yet his technical capacity is huge, his speed and control--especially in flying octaves--startling. There may even be a poet underneath his cool stage-manner; at this moment, one would not place any bets on that, however.