Pianist Noever Pays Tribute to Brahms, Schubert in Recital

In anniversary years--and 1997 is one, with important milestones for both Schubert and Brahms--musicians sometimes exceed themselves in honoring composers we all love.

Theodor Noever, a Bulgarian pianist and now a music academic from Innsbruck, Austria, exceeded his range in programming both Schubert’s “Wanderer” Fantasy and Brahms’ large-scale, F-minor Sonata, for his debut recital at the L.A. County Museum of Art Wednesday night.

He traversed the difficulties in both bravely, and without major mishaps, but he was walking on the edge. And these works were clearly beyond his ability when it came to probing their workings and delivering their content.

Noever’s deficiencies might appear in any repertory, of course. His brittle tone and monochromatic color palette did little to illuminate a work as relatively uncomplicated--though musically deep--as Schubert’s Opus 120 Sonata.

In two of Brahms’ Opus 10 Ballades Noever kept his musical analyses one-dimensional, just as he did in the subsequent F-minor Sonata. All the notes were there, the keys diligently depressed, but the playing field had been flattened to the point where the high points in each work sounded equal to the low points.

The event, played on a handsome Bluthner piano, was presented jointly by the museum and the Austrian-American Council.