CLASSICAL MUSIC

Peter Pertis

The Hungarian pianist Peter Pertis spent a decade in semi-retirement to reconsider his artistic mission and enlarge his repertoire. Yet he emerged from that hiatus on Sunday afternoon to present a recital at Strathmore Mansion consisting entirely of thrice-familiar chestnuts: Beethoven's "Pathetique" Sonata, three Chopin waltzes, Liszt's "Vall¿e d'Obermann" and Schumann's "Carnaval."

Pertis produces a rich, velvety sound and devotes considerable attention to the sensitive voicing of chords. In the slow movement of the "Pathetique," for instance, Beethoven's noble lyricism was held aloft by carefully calibrated, nuanced textures in the accompaniment, to beautiful effect. For all his emphasis on tone production, Pertis seemed little concerned with articulation strategies -- the varied attack and release of individual notes.

The three Chopin dances, including the famous C-sharp Minor and "Minute" waltzes of Op. 64, were rhythmically destabilized by a curiously eccentric rubato. And the richly imaginative, fleeting impressions and character sketches that constitute Schumann's "Carnaval" threatened to jump the tracks due to unbridled accelerations and quixotic halts. Indeed, some of the more technically challenging movements, such as "Reconnaissance" and "Paganini," were little more than blurs of notes swamped with pedal.

One hopes that, as he relaxes into a schedule of regular performances, Pertis will free himself of the mannerisms displayed in this recital to cultivate a more centered and direct interpretive approach.

-- Patrick Rucker

Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra

Kenneth Slowik is a gift to music. An energetic polymath, Slowik pokes and prods each score as scholar, player or -- as at the Renwick Gallery on Sunday evening with the Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra -- conductor. The group reveled in string essays from the 20th century, playing with the intimacy of a chamber ensemble and the full-bodied warmth of an orchestra.

Slowik is a master of transcription, finding novel rearrangements that lay bare the central qualities that make music go. It is typically an act of reduction, paring down a many-instrumented piece to more tailored and revealing proportions. Yet, in Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8, the process went in reverse, with almost two dozen strings filling the Grand Salon. The musicians turned this gripping piece into a cri de coeur from an artist living under a totalitarian regime. After the sighs from the cellos at the opening bars, Slowik drew out poignant sounds from each section with overlapping themes clashing and then dying. What the enlarged forces missed in detail and dexterity, they made up in richness and sheer volume.

Such luminosity carried into Strauss's elegiac "Metamorphosen," which came off as an act of musical escape. Otherworldly melodies grew in shape and texture into pools of sound, dark and deep. Bartok's Divertimento received a reading of contrasting exuberance and pluck with zesty folk themes and lilting rhythms.

-- Daniel Ginsberg