MUSIC REVIEW : Showy UCLA Program by Viardo

Thousands of notes--entire forests of hemidemisemiquavers abuzz in activity, thickets of chords and octaves, cascades of arpeggios--tumble out of the piano when Vladimir Viardo plays a recital. And that’s only in the first quarter-hour. Besides technique, the Russian pianist has stamina; he can keep up his own, hyperkinetic keyboard pace for long periods.

Viardo returned here Sunday night, playing a demanding, finger-busting yet artistically balanced program of works by Medtner, Rachmaninoff and Debussy in Royce Hall at UCLA. If the focus was on display, so be it. This pianist has a lot to show off.

Musical interest seems never to be the first priority in one of Viardo’s recitals, yet it is always present.

As a charismatic performer--musicians in this category are less numerous than they once were--the 43-year-old communicator seems to enjoy connecting with his audience, adding little rushes to its pleasure, underlining melodies for its delectation. Observing him on the stage, one has to assume he is a people person, as they say.

But no faker. Viardo plays all the notes in their assigned sequence and with scrupulous honesty in regard to dynamics, emotional emphasis and musical line. He is the real thing: a virtuoso and an artist.

What was old on this program became cherishable--Medtner’s A-minor Sonata and Rachmaninoff’s “Corelli” Variations, both of which he played at Ambassador Auditorium in 1991--through careful reiteration of their fervid, busy and many charms.

What was new became memorable--Medtner’s “Canzona Mattinata” and “Sonata Tragica,” played as a group without pause and occupying, in toto, less than 15 minutes, and Book II of the Preludes of Debussy.

Established virtuosos like Viardo can melt even the most punctilious of hard-hearts by beginning a program with the quiet lyricism of a piece like “Canzona Mattinata”--it invades the senses and cannot be resisted. Here, before a large audience clearly ready to be seduced, Viardo used it disarmingly.

At the other end of the program, he drew upon his comprehensive technique and kaleidoscopic color-palette to bring to life all the pictorial riches of Debussy’s 12 brief tone-poems, from the intense quietude of “Bruyeres” and “Canopes” to the brilliant displays of “Feux d’artifice.” And he did so with effortless skill, apparent spontaneity and utter control.

What two encores could add dimension to this agenda? First, an ecstatic excerpt from Messiaen’s “Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jesus”; then, Schubert’s “Standchen” in the Liszt transcription. At its conclusion, Viardo, ever the man-in-charge, closed the keyboard lid.