Sans Bach, Lifschitz is no Gould

Konstantin Lifschitz’s publicity crew has been busy comparing the 26-year-old Ukrainian pianist with the late Glenn Gould. His reputation, like Gould’s, was apparently made by a recording of J.S. Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations that he taped at age 17.

Beyond that, it was hard to find any similarities in approach, manner or repertory, at least on the basis of his Bach-free Jose Iturbi Gold Medal Series recital at the Cerritos Center on Monday night.

Lifschitz led off with Beethoven’s “Appassionata” Sonata (which Gould did play, however eccentrically) -- opening promisingly by pushing the introduction to dynamic extremes. But the third movement had very little of the “appassionata” about it -- too controlled, even tame down the stretch.

Shostakovich’s Sonata No. 2 is a wartime piece but not one of the more inspired or cathartic from that period. Lifschitz sounded somewhat listless in the first two movements, coming to life just in time to generate some drive in the middle variations of the Finale.

If you are going to load the second half of a recital with Ravel’s “Valses nobles et sentimentales” and Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” it’s a good idea to sequence them in that order, to take advantage of the grandiose ending of the latter.

Yet Lifschitz tried the opposite, opening with “Pictures” -- which, aside from some passages of drift, he played with understanding and power -- and closing with Ravel, which seemed anti-climactic in this context.