Kahane celebrates a new job with a sonic recital

On Monday, the Colorado Symphony announced that Jeffrey Kahane would become its next music director, beginning in 2005. That is the year he is scheduled to leave the Santa Rosa Symphony in Northern California, which means it will mark a move up the orchestral food chain for the former pianist, who also is music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (at least until 2007, when his contract expires).

Did I say former pianist? Maybe the timing of Kahane’s recital at the Colburn School’s Zipper Auditorium on Thursday night was coincidental. But this benefit for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra also was a major statement -- of his continuing devotion to his orchestra, to be sure, but, more important, of a still-consuming devotion to the piano.

The all-Beethoven program, which began with two of the composer’s demanding late piano sonatas and ended with the stupendous “Diabelli” Variations, would have been an extraordinary challenge, technically and spiritually, for any pianist. But Kahane, who frequently conducts concertos from the keyboard, rarely plays recitals. That was obvious, because he performed with scores on the piano instead of from memory. It wasn’t obvious, however, from the breathtakingly authoritative performances.

Kahane plays Beethoven fast and big. That is to say, he throws himself into the music and practically onto the piano. And on this evening, the piano itself was part of the story. The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra announced that it would now start using pianos made only by Paolo Fazioli, the Italian who selects for his soundboards the same red spruce from the Val di Flemme forests that Stradivari chose for his string instruments.

The Fazioli makes a modern sound. Its bass notes seem to set new standards for volume and buzz. The high end of the keyboard is startlingly bright. Most striking of all is just how long notes ring in the air. In the first half of the concert, there were raw edges in the bass and jingling treble, but they were smoothed out after a technician worked on the instrument during intermission. And overall, the piano proved satisfyingly rich and responsive to Kahane’s massive attacks.

The performances were not just fast but sometimes incredibly so. In the “Diabelli,” which Kahane got through in 45 minutes (probably not a record but up there), he courted danger as he took the powerful instrument out for a test-drive. But Kahane also happens to be a particularly fine and clear-toned Bach pianist, and it was the continual interplay between his clarifying classical impulse and sheer impulsiveness that made this late Beethoven so engrossing.

Sometimes in the mad momentum of the sonatas’ middle movements, the effect turned into a shower of notes, but even here a surprising amount of detail was retained. And spirits were high. In the hilarious 13th of the “Diabelli” Variations, Kahane was like Dr. Strangelove as he percussively attacked the piano, stopped himself, attacked again.

Other times, a listener might have liked a moment of relaxation in Kahane’s take-no-prisoners approach. The “Diabelli” Variations are the most famous overreaction in all music. Beethoven took an insipid waltz written by the publisher Anton Diabelli and went crazy, coming up with one riveting idea after another and finally transcending the waltz altogether, losing himself in the peculiarly modern-sounding mystical realm he inhabited in his late piano music.

Kahane began by playing the little Diabelli waltz with full Beethovenian fury and never let up. As an act of concentration, the performance was remarkable. As an act of physical will, it was even more remarkable. As a sonic event -- Kahane taking his Fazioli to its limits -- it was perhaps most remarkable of all.

The two late sonatas also are incredible works. The Sonata No. 30, Opus 109, ends with a transcendental set of variations; the Sonata No. 31, Opus 110, culminates with a monumental fugue. In both finales, Kahane raced to the finish. He wasn’t reckless, but he did give the impression that floodgates had been opened, and notes poured out as if there were no stopping them.

This is not the only way to play Beethoven. But it is an exhilarating and amazing way to celebrate a new job. Imagine what kind of Beethoven Kahane might play if he’s ever made music director of the New York Philharmonic.