Rudolf Buchbinder began the season of Sunday afternoon piano recitals at Orchestra Hall with an old-fashioned program played with contemporary restraint.
Seven works by J. S. Bach, Franz Schubert and Ludwig van Beethoven had clarity, precision, fluency and a virtually complete absence of interpretative excess.
Had we encountered the performances on records, they would have been in the category of trustworthy introductions to masterpieces, which is to say, respectful, intelligent accounts giving more light than heat.
Bach’s Third “English” Suite had a fairly narrow range of color, but was not thin of tone. The largeness of a Steinway concert grand sounded smaller owing to a steady, matter-of-fact delivery that made every detail audible without special emphasis.
Buchbinder observed all of Bach’s repeats, embellishing the second time around with the crispest of ornaments. He remained unruffled by a cellphone ringing in the second Gavotte. And his overall elan was such that the account might have served as a lesson on convincingly playing Bach on a modern piano.
Schubert’s Four Impromptus, D. 899, proved, likewise, comfortable in speed and light of touch. However, pearly clarity was not enough in the C-Minor Impromptu. Buchbinder is a collector of historic scores, and perhaps an edition different from mine was missing a number of telling changes in dynamics that help convey inwardness. Their absence gave a whiff of superficiality.
After intermission, came two Beethoven sonatas, one lyrical and jokey (Op. 14, No. 2), the other tragic (Op. 57), both with slow movements of variations. Buchbinder was at his best in the earlier one, conveying especially well its playfulness, without overstatement or underlining. The occasional passage marked “sweetly” went for nothing, though the ease of his legato was a joy.
Buchbinder’s Op. 57 — called the “Appassionata,” but not by Beethoven — was for the most part expert in taming unruly emotions in the interest of holding them all together. Moderate speeds were, again, part of the process, but Buchbinder’s allegro in the last movement was a shade too fast to allow an even faster, grief-stricken outburst at the end. It was a disappointing concession to virtuosity.
There were two encores: a lightly touched Gigue from Bach’s Partita in B-Flat Major, and Alfred Grunfeld’s “Soiree de Vienne,” a paraphrase on motifs from Johann Strauss II’s “Die Fledermaus,” seductively played.
Alan Artner is a freelance critic.
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