A Follow-Up Visit by Pianist Kodama

Four years ago, Osaka-born, Paris-trained pianist Mari Kodama made a local debut, playing the first dozen of Chopin’s 24 Preludes, Opus 28, in the now-defunct series Chamber Music/LA. That down payment, well-received, was followed up this week, when Kodama, in her first L.A.-area recital, played in Schoenberg Hall at UCLA on Saturday night.

Thoroughly equipped technically--though she has not begun to develop the dynamic expanses of quiet, articulate playing in which great pianism must eventually deal--Kodama gave, along with the Preludes, an exhaustive calling card of a program also including Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue and Beethoven’s Sonata in E-flat, Opus 81a, “Les Adieux.”

In none of these three works did the pianist show notable signs of expertise, personal commitment or poetic response. Wearing a handsome raspberry-and-black gown and surrounded by tastefully slender potted plants, Kodama looked the role of an understated keyboardist; in the ear, her playing combined hardness and toughness clangorously.

Though she traversed their length easily, the pianist revealed nothing new or illuminating about the Preludes. Most of them emerged too loud, the nuances drowned in a haze of literalness. Bach’s great canvas revealed fingers of steel, and a few welcome moments of dynamic contrast.

Beethoven’s most characteristic Romantic canvas--though every one of his sonatas stands alone--told the listener very little about “Farewell,” “Absence” or “Return,” certainly next to nothing about the feelings these touching events caused in the composer. It all became very cut and dried.