Pollini's rare artistry is restricted

That aloofness was evident right from the opening Kreisleriana of Schumann. Phrase after phrase was foreshortened, as though Pollini loses patience with each in turn. It’s as though he refuses to live in the moment: he has to be somewhere else.

Such a cerebral approach may be the result of an unduly analytical mind — Pollini is undoubtedly an intellectual.

Equally it may be to do with the fact that his modernist sympathies — his commendable espousal of contemporary music was not in evidence last night but is well attested — encourage a kind of deconstruction of Romantic scores, an undermining of their heroic or poetic qualities.

It has to be said, though, that Pollini’s technical mastery is no longer unassailable. That insecurity may well account for the scrambled, vertiginous nature of virtuoso passages, such as those of Chopin’s Scherzo No 1 in B minor. There was some impressive playing here, too: Pollini’s tone is always ingratiating and there were many wonderfully nuanced moments.

But once again expansive gestures were shunned, with the result that too much was flattened out and under-characterised.

Debussy’s first book of Preludes fared better in this respect. Les Collines d’Anacapri had a hint of a sultry night, Des Pas sur la Neige was aptly frigid and laboured, while La Cathédrale Engloutie benefited both from an architectural sense and a subtle use of half-tone, to which Pollini added his own vocal cantus firmus.

At last in La Danse de Puck and Minstrels there were traces of humour and humanity. Then three substantial encores, including Chopin’s Revolutionary Study and First Ballade, both powerfully delivered if not exactly earth-shaking.

Pollini is a pianist of rare artistry, sometimes genius, but these days it is not always obvious.

Maurizio Pollini
Festival Hall