MUSIC REVIEW : Louis Lortie Offers Prime Chopin Recital

In three previous Ambassador Auditorium appearances--and one in the South Bay--Louis Lortie has proved himself a Chopin player of exceptional finesse and technical accomplishment. So it could have been no surprise at all when the Canadian pianist gave an entire Chopin recital in the Pasadena hall Wednesday night and a weather-defying, hard-listening audience cheered him to the echo.

At 35, Lortie is now reaching a prime that could last for decades. He has the fingers of a keyboard wizard, the poetic bent of one born to play music of the Romantics and a strong personality. His Chopin program, consisting of the posthumous “Trois Nouvelles Etudes,” the 12 Etudes of Opus 25 and the Preludes, Opus 28, offered solid musical values and treasurable individual performances.

If the 24 Preludes, which he had played in Marsee Auditorium two years ago, proved alternately superficial and probing--some of them perfectly, sensitively balanced between statement and subtext, some merely monochromatic--call the dichotomy a temporary condition.

The great interpreters of Opus 28--Rubinstein, Arrau or Lympany, to name only three whose playing remains in one set of ears--did not necessarily achieve their plateaus before middle age; at 35, they were still in process. At this point, one can enjoy Lortie’s high accomplishment with the knowledge that 10 or 30 years hence, his art will still be expanding and deepening.

That said, one must praise just a few of its current beauties: The subtleties, complex tone-relationships and high lyricism in the F-sharp and D-flat Preludes; the unforced, persuasive rhetoric in the A-minor and B-minor pieces.

As solid and imperturbable as his technical achievement is, Lortie becomes free to make fascinating music out of the Opus 25 Etudes. This he did consistently, leaving in our memory some joyful moments: the well-savored, seductively slowed-down, major section of the E-minor (No. 5); effortless lightness and transparency in the etude in thirds (No. 7); a perfectly shaped, linearly approached and dramatic realization of the C-sharp minor.

At the start of the evening, the “Trois Nouvelles Etudes” sang out handsomely. At the other end of the recital, two encores brought further cheers from the spectators. They were the unexpected G-flat Waltz, in a performance of abundant, poignant charm, and the expected “Revolutionary” Etude.