Oct. 05--Maurizio Pollini, a legend at the piano for more than half a century, began the fall season of recitals at Orchestra Hall on Sunday afternoon with a familiar pattern of music and performance that had a worshipful audience in the palm of his hand.
The adventurous repertory that once supported his intellectualism was absent. And, as was the case in Chicago almost a year ago, his program presented only the music of Robert Schumann and Frederic Chopin.
The lone surprise was the sureness with which Pollini, at 73, disproved the myth of an artist's perpetual evolution, for the clarity, tastefulness and expressive reticence of his playing was ever-present, sounding much as it did decades ago.
In the Schumann Opus 8 Allegro, Pollini's own Hamburg Steinway (rebuilt by Angelo Fabbrini) produced some hard tone in the treble, though this scarcely mattered given a characteristically brisk, go-ahead interpretation that admitted no lingering.
Pollini never has shown a variety of touch that translates to a full palette of colors and, hence, emotion. So his Schumann Opus 17 Fantasy had plenty of uniform churning but a restricted dynamic range and dampened contrasts giving character. When marked "gently, very sweet," the passage was merely quiet. When characterized as "agitated," the music just went faster. The composer's injunction "to be played fantastically and passionately throughout" was ascetically narrowed. The mysterious spirit of the motto Schumann appended by the arch-Romantic Friedrich Schlegel at the head of the score was allowed to evaporate.
The second half of the program, devoted entirely to Chopin, held eight selections, five scheduled, three given as encores. This was clearly why many listeners' attended, as the whooping that preceded Pollini's playing continued in one instance to after he had begun
Two works -- the Third Scherzo and Nocturne, Op. 27, No. 2 -- were reprised from last year. The difference was even more matter-of-factness, though the Scherzo, like the Opus 61 Polonaise-fantaisie that preceded it, came alive in the final pages. Pollini's two Nocturnes, Op. 55, were brightly lit as ever. The Barcarolle, Op. 60, showed a modest attempt to realize the unusual directive "sweetly unbridled."
Pollini's encores were the "Revolutionary" Etude, Op. 10, No. 12, the aforementioned Opus 27 Nocturne and the First Ballade. All were pale in expression, with faster music betraying some slips, but they prompted shouts and standing ovations nonetheless.
Alan Artner is a freelance critic.
ctc-arts@tribpub.com
