Music Reviews : Brendel’s Provocative Beethoven Series

The art of Alfred Brendel is complex, probing, concentrated, civilized. In his performances of great music--we don’t remember his ever playing unimportant scores--the Austrian pianist analyzes, dissects, synthesizes and integrates. One of the reasons he is celebrated by other musicians is that he presents his findings without sweat, grandstanding or self-congratulation.

This week, Brendel revisits the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to give the third and fourth installments of his six-recital survey of the complete piano sonatas by Beethoven (he will play programs V and VI in May, 1995). Sunday night, his attention fell on the first three--Opus 2, Nos. 1, 3 and 2 (in that order)--and on Opus 57, the so-called “Appassionata.”

As always with Brendel, he made memorable, provocative music in performances other musicians may talk about for years to come.

In works thoroughly well-known, Brendel’s reconsidered readings may surprise the listener, for they invariably reinstate aspects one may have forgotten. In the case of the very first of these 32 sonatas, the F-minor of Opus 2, the surprises on Sunday concerned its practically amazing cohesion, and the contrasts the composer built into it: the authority of the opening, the songfulness of the slow movement, the grace of the Menuetto, the gentle vehemence in the finale.

*

Too many other pianists have made this canvas sound dull; without exaggeration, and within a self-restricted dynamic range, Brendel gave it back its personality.

The C-major Sonata is the showpiece of this first set. The 63-year-old pianist let it speak for itself, breezily, matter-of-factly in the opening movement, seriously in the Adagio, with wonderful lightness in the Scherzo and finale. The cherishable, urbane A-major work, played after intermission, shows the young composer in his most Haydnesque--he dedicated the entire Opus 2 to the older composer--gracious and charming mode. Brendel allowed it to sing.

Directness was also his approach to Opus 57, wherein the composer’s light and shadow made their points strongly but without overstatement, the slow movement moved inexorably toward its release in the finale, and that closing proved exciting but controlled.