Violinist, 16, Has Skill but Lacks Subtlety

At 16, violinist Sarah Chang is already a veteran of the concert circuit, but she is still emerging as an artist. That should come as news to no one except those intoxicated with the concept of the prodigy.

It takes time for a musician to develop. It is not a matter of technique, which Chang has enough of; it’s a matter of having sufficient time to develop something to say and the personality with which to say it.

In a five-part program Thursday at the Laguna Beach Artists’ Theatre sponsored by the Philharmonic Society, Chang showed she’s in the process.

Her playing ranged between top-drawer and school-recital time. She came into her own in big, heroic, robust or virtuosic statements. In introspective passages, she played notes without much sense or character.

Strauss’ early Sonata in E-flat and Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 2 are prone to large declarations. These gave her the greatest opportunities to exploit her strengths--playing powerful, bony, long-lined statements, though there could have been more ethnic fire in the close of the Prokofiev.

Even so, that’s not all there is to these pieces. Their quieter, reflective passages emerged without direction or definition.

The pyrotechnics of Saraste’s “Carmen” Fantasy can be justified--or endured--only as an exuberance of musical personality. Otherwise, they’re dry fireworks, as here. Because the opera themes are so familiar, it’s deadly to play them with so little character.

At the other end of the virtuoso scale were Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp minor, No. 20, and Mozart’s Violin Sonata in C, K. 296. Here the Chopin became a mere study in quiet and steady tone, without poetry or emotion. Mozart emerged as a period piece, light and deft, but without much warmth or charm.

Throughout the recital, Chang appeared to be listening closely to her pianist, Charles Abramovic, but there didn’t seem to be much communication between them. Abramovic provided efficient but faceless accompaniment.