Zimerman’s skills displayed

Krystian Zimerman is a poet and virtuoso of the keyboard who put poetry before virtuosity in his recital Wednesday at Royce Hall, UCLA, to generally good effect.

The whole first half of the program took place in a transcendental world. From the opening measures of Brahms’ Six Piano Pieces, Opus 118, one of the composer’s last works, Zimerman established a sense of airy, time- less contemplation that embraced the listener and invited participation in post-conflict serenity.

Zimerman’s Brahms was uncluttered, delicate and light, in the fast and vigorous passages as well as the moonlit ones. If the Polish pianist opened the doors to Eden in the Romanze in F, the fifth piece, he found unexpected complexity and uncertainty beyond in the closing Intermezzo in E-flat minor.

Beethoven’s Sonata No. 31, Opus 110, which followed, continued in the same lyric, poetic vein, emerging from a world beyond pain and struggle to end in an immensely constructed but joyful fugue.

Post-intermission, however, Zimerman’s Brahms suddenly began to sound more like Chopin -- possibly his F-sharp minor Impromptu and his Sonata in B minor -- than the German composer’s Sonata in F minor, which was indicated on the program. The concert presenter, UCLA Live, was unaware of a program change, and Zimerman was not available for comment. In either case, the playing was robust, but more than a few people in the audience were left scratching their heads.

Zimerman has the advantage of traveling with his own piano, a Steinway grand, rebuilt to his specifications to accommodate his artistic as well as practical demands. It sounded glorious in Royce Hall.