MUSIC REVIEWS : Brendel Finds the Options in Beethoven

An experienced listener thinks he knows the piano sonatas of Beethoven. But every time Alfred Brendel comes to town, that listener is treated to new ideas and insights, and sometimes his knowledge seems turned sideways.

Not that the Austrian pianist, who returned to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Friday and Sunday nights to play nine more of the 32 sonatas, is an arbitrary or whimsical interpreter of this canon. He merely rethinks his options and musical choices and varies his evolving performances to fit his latest thoughts.

The problem, for any observer entering the realm of Brendel’s thinking, is that this cerebral process is still subject to human variation. Not the pianist’s technique, which is better than reliable and seems seldom to falter, but the normal ebb and flow of energy and inspiration.

Friday night, he seemed to suffer a dry spell. In the various emotional landscapes encompassed in Opus 79, Opus 78, Opus 28 (“Pastoral”), Opus 90 and Opus 7, there was little projection and no extra energy. Brendel played through these five sonatas, dissecting and analyzing, but not truly delivering their contents.

Some of the playfulness and fun in Opus 28 emerged in a small way. Some of the serenity in the songful second movement of Opus 90 made an appearance. But the depths in the great slow movement of Opus 7, which some have marked as a peak in the early period, became indicated rather than realized. And the myriad moods of each of the movements in all these works became gray, not colorful.

Sometimes more tough than urgent, more detached than compelling, more analytical than impassioned, this installment in a noble project had to be disappointing.