Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin: Murray Perahia, piano, Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco  5.03.2007 (HS)

There is nothing flamboyant about Murray Perahia. The pianist almost trudges to the piano, bows curtly to half the audience and sits down to play. And what comes out, even if it is not the most transcendent piano playing, has a grace and legato sound that is hard to match.

 

The cavernous space of Davies Hall muddied some of the clarity that Perahia achieves in more intimate surroundings or on recordings, especially in fast or dense passages. In his recital Monday, it didn't help that he used pedal a bit more than he should to suit the live acoustic. But when the line got lyrical, Perahia's touch produced a liquid sound that made the music sing and dance.

 

This was evident from the first piece, J.S. Bach's C Minor Partita, where the inner dance movements had a lilt that seduced the ear. If the repeated sixteenth-notes in the next piece, Beethoven's Sonata No. 15 in D Major Pastoral, blurred a bit, it was hard to believe that the singing line above them could come from a percussive instrument.

 

Perahia's approach to both these pieces was lyrical throughout, even in the big chords of Bach's French overture-like prelude. Schumann's Fantasiestücke, which opened the second half, excelled in the wistful "Warum?" ("Why?") and the gorgeous, soft harmonies of "Ende von Lied" ("Song's End") more than the energetic "Aufschwüng" ("Soaring") or "Grillen" ("Whims"). But the best of the "stücke" was "Fabel," ("Fable"), in which Perahia let the music unfold as a true storyteller should.

 

That approach also served him well for the final work on the program, Chopin's Ballade No. 4 in F Minor. At various moments, the composer asks the pianist to create sounds that sing and lilt, and others that rumble and roar. Other pianists can light a hotter fire in the extroverted passages, but few can match Perahia's shimmering sound in the quieter, more introverted moments. What the performance lacked in grandeur it more than made up for in delicacy and warmth.

 

The flying, nearly perpetual-motion patterns of Schubert's Impromptu No. 2 in E-flat major, the first encore, emerged with greater clarity than much of the fast music on the regular program. And Chopin's Nocturne in F major ended the proceedings in a return to the pianist's lyrical mode.

 

Harvey Steiman