When Mikhail Pletnev is really up for it, he has few peers among the pianists of today, and his recital at the Barbican on Sunday evening was one of those precious occasions. In a published programme of Beethoven and Chopin - two sonatas followed by the four scherzos - he displayed all the facets of his exceptional keyboard command and intense musicality, and very few of the mannerisms that he sometimes substitutes.
The interpretative decisions he makes do not always correspond with received opinion, and when taken in isolation some can seem even self- conscious; he needs the audience to trust his instincts, and to follow where he is going. On this occasion they were handsomely rewarded.
He began unassumingly with the modest G major Sonata, Op 14 no 2, treating the opening theme almost rhapsodically, before steadily accelerating through the development. The Waldstein Sonata, though, was immediately on a different plane, full of teeming detail, ravishing dynamic effects and an iron grip on the trajectory of the whole work, which did not slacken even when the last movement was marred by a fire alarm that resounded through the hall for several minutes. This was Pletnev recreating Beethoven's musical world unambiguously in terms of the modern Steinway grand, in all its Technicolor glory.
His way with Chopin was equally revelatory. Though the precision of the playing was never in doubt, there was little conventional barnstorming even in the wracked intensity of the B flat minor and C sharp minor scherzos, yet energy coursed through every bar. Perspectives constantly changed, and even in the more reflective passages - the flourishes that punctuate the second theme of the C sharp minor for instance - Pletnev was able to indicate the drama beneath the surface in the way he shaped incidental detail and gave it an indelible inflection.
There were four encores including a piece of Scriabin of hazy, suggestive colours, a Scarlatti sonata of endless subtlety and wit - and, gloriously, Balakirev's Islamey, a work renowned for its ferocious technical difficulties, which Pletnev delivered with astonishing vividness. Altogether a fabulous experience.
After all that, it was hard to recall much of the Beethoven programme that Stephen Kovacevich had given at the Festival Hall in the afternoon. He seemed uneasy from the start, definitely not at his best; his poise must have been affected by his piano, which developed an unpleasant jangling buzz when required to deal with anything above forte, and was veering out of tune in the second half.
As his continuing sonata cycle on disc demonstrates, Kovacevich's Beethoven can be far more convincing than this - the Appassionata Op 57 was overwhelmed by fury rather than focused energy. The Bagatelles of Op 126 came off best, each nicely contained and organised, but the E major Sonata Op 109 never got off the ground, and the final movement in particular was dogged rather than inspired.
