PERFORMING ARTS

Margarete Babinsky

The music of Franz Schubert shouldn't be fussed with. His complex materials best reveal their unostentatious beauty and depth of feeling in the hands of interpreters who strive for as much balance and grace as possible. Saturday night at the Austrian Embassy, pianist Margarete Babinsky's readings of Schubert had problems that could have been avoided if she had just let the music speak for itself.

Along with two impromptus, Babinsky played two of Schubert's piano masterworks: the showy, brilliant "Wanderer" Fantasy, D. 760, and the ruminative, ambiguous Sonata in B-flat, D. 960. All fell resoundingly flat. Babinsky twisted phrases out of shape with random hesitations. Movements would begin at rushed tempos, then quicken or slow from phrase to phrase. Nothing hung together.

Babinsky turned the volume up to fortissimo too often, and her piano-pounding made an ugly sound. She also chose some bizarre interpretative paths, like playing the skipping trio section of the "Wanderer" Fantasy's scherzo as an almost rhythmless nocturne. Her near-constant technical difficulties -- mis-hit chords, ragged runs, uneven trills -- didn't help, but that wasn't the biggest problem with these performances.

The Embassy Series presented the concert as a celebration of the 251st anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's birth, which was also Saturday. Babinsky acknowledged the occasion with a playful, fleet performance of his variations on "Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman," a tune better known today as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." Babinsky's encore, one of Schubert's "Moments Musicaux," had the same simple, winning feel. The rest of the program could have used some of that.

-- Andrew Lindemann Malone

Collins Kids

The Collins Kids, a brother-sister duo who were teenage stars in the 1950s, headlined a rockabilly riot of four hours of twang and strum Friday night at the Birchmere.

The evening was a putative celebration of the work of the late Link Wray, the pioneering guitarist who spent some of his formative years in our region, but that got lost in the excitement. Pedro Sera & the Lock 5 started the evening in fine style, bringing on Marti Brom, formerly of Austin but now living here, to belt out authentic Wanda Jackson-like burners; Eddie Angel & the Neanderthals, garbed in cheetah spots and eye masks, were as hilarious as they were furious in their guitar-driven rock.