Chopin and His Idols is the overarching title of Andras Schiff's latest Wigmore Hall project - four recitals given at monthly intervals, combining Chopin with JS Bach, Mozart and Scarlatti. I'm not sure of the didactic purpose of such rigorous theming. All those aspects of Chopin's genius that make him unique - his innovative formal mastery, harmonic daring, intensely expressive melodic imagination - are precisely those that he could not have derived from his models. Nevertheless, Schiff is using the series as a chance to explore some of Bach and Mozart's lesser-known keyboard works, and to include a selection of Scarlatti's 500-odd sonatas alongside some more familiar Chopin.
Whether this has produced a well-balanced programme is another matter. There were more than two hours of music in Thursday's opening concert - an eloquent demonstration of Schiff's own powers of concentration, but a stiffer test of his audience's. The toughest challenge came first: Bach's French Overture in B minor isn't one of his greatest keyboard works, but a sequence of eight mostly unremarkable movements discarded from the set of Partitas. Schiff's performance didn't make it any more palatable. Nearly everything was played at an insistent mezzo forte, and the tone colour was unvarying - Bach as improving sermon.
Such self-important seriousness characterised much of the rest of the evening too. Mozart's Variations on a Theme from Gluck's Die Pilgrime von Mekka, K455, were devoid of humour and substituted winsomeness for real charm, while the six Scarlatti sonatas had rhythmic verve and interesting perspectives, but little in the way of glittering keyboard sonority or crystalline transparency.
Schiff's playing was distinguished: technically impeccable, intellectually coherent. But its point-making was laborious, and in pieces as aphoristic as many of Chopin's 24 preludes, this was a distinct disadvantage. Melodic lines remained earthbound when they should have floated free, and inner voices were obscured by textural mud. It was all worthy rather than worthwhile.
· Andras Schiff is at the Wigmore Hall, London W1 (020-7935 2141), on December 13 and 14.
