Review: Buchbinder debuts here with Beethoven

When, exactly, Rudolf Buchbinder moved into the front ranks of concert pianists is hard to pinpoint. He has been in evidence since entering (but not winning) the 1966 Van Cliburn Competition and has long insinuated himself through European-made recordings centering on Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms. They exude solidity and remind you that the middle of the road can be as stimulating as the outer fringe.

At 68, Buchbinder only now has made his solo recital debut here, presented Friday at the Kimmel Center by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. Though we like to think no musical lifetime is long enough to plumb the depths of Beethoven's piano sonatas, certain music fares better in the fearlessness of youth. And in Buchbinder's all-Beethoven recital, the first movement of the "Pathetique" (Sonata No. 8 in C minor Op. 13) and the last movement of the "Moonlight" (Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor Op. 27 No. 2) didn't have the kind of headlong impetuousness that often comes with that music. Alternative views weren't evident amid smudged notes and passagework that clattered more than glittered.

The best playing was in the middle movements of the "Pathetique" and the "Appassionata" (Sonata No. 23 in F minor Op. 57), where the less interruptive flow of ideas revealed Buchbinder's analytic vision more readily. Often, he found an inner voice in the piano texture that made the whole passage fall into place. The slow movement of the "Pathetique" had a kind of architectural unity, aided by a less-lingering tempo than he has favored in the past, not just showing how each note was part of the structural whole but also suggesting its specific function within such edifices.

Also, in this movement, one could better appreciate Buchbinder's tone, namely the expansive darkness of his bass range. The theme-and-variations movement of the "Appassionata" was similarly revealed, with a clear progression of the music's horizontal logic. And in the work of a composer who indulges in leaps of logic like Beethoven's, a feat like that happens only after decades of study and performance.