Lots of ‘B’ Assignments--as in Beethoven, Brahms : Music: Among the former’s concertos, Bruno-Leonardo Gelber prefers No. 4, but he’ll take the fifth. He plays it tonight and Thursday in Costa Mesa.

Argentine pianist Bruno-Leonardo Gelber figures he’s played some 4,500 concerts in his career. Of those, he’s played about two in Southern California since 1989. Most recently, last season at UCLA, he played Beethoven’s Concerto No. 5, “The Emperor,” with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

At concerts with the Pacific Symphony tonight and Thursday in Costa Mesa, he’ll again serve as soloist for Beethoven’s Concerto No. 5.

“It’s not my choice,” said Gelber, 54, reached by phone while vacationing in Ft. Lauderdale last week, following performances with the Florida Philharmonic. “[It’s] the choice of the orchestra. The conductors don’t worry what you do with the others.

“But [Pacific music director] Carl St.Clair . . . he is an excellent conductor and a nice person. That’s not usual, you know. Excellent conductors often have bad characters, nice conductors can be very bad musicians!

“Anyhow, I prefer the No. 4.”

The public probably prefers No. 5, however, and no doubt cashing in on the soundtrack and recent motion picture about Beethoven called “Immortal Beloved,” the orchestra has dubbed the program “Beloved Beethoven.” The other work on the “Beloved Beethoven” concerts is Richard Strauss’ “Ein Heldenleben” (A Hero’s Life). Well, if Beethoven didn’t lead a hero’s life, who did?

Gelber’s discography might suggest that he is a Beethoven and Brahms specialist, but that’s not how the Buenos Aires-born, Monaco-based pianist sees himself.

“I play every composer with a lot of pleasure,” Gelber said. “But Beethoven and Brahms, the playing is not so bad.”

Gelber’s playing of Beethoven has proven “not so bad” enough to earn his first volume of the sonatas--so far he’s recorded 20 of the 32--the Prix de l’Academie de Paris. Last season’s performance of “The Emperor” with the LACO drew over-the-top raves from this paper.

Has his take on the concerto changed much since that performance in October, 1993?

“It could change in 24 hours,” Gelber said. “The miracle of our profession is that things are never the same. The structure and style might be the same, but the public is not the same, you don’t feel the same, and the inspiration can be totally different.

“It is not because you want to change the interpretation, it is because you are different. Concertos like this I play since I was 15.”

It was at age 15, in fact, that Gelber played the Schumann Concerto with the Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra under Lorin Maazel. At 19, the French government granted him a scholarship to study with Marguerite Long in Paris.

His concert career, however, began much earlier than either of those landmark events, even before polio struck him at the age of 7.

“People think it was because of polio that I became a concert pianist,” Gelber said. “I was a pianist before; I played a concert at 5. The polio kept me in lying in bed for one year, but I played anyhow the piano. I asked my parents to push the bed under the piano,” he said, explaining that he would practice on his back. “After one year, I couldn’t walk, but my father took me anyway in his arms, and I played a concert at the radio.

“I don’t remember [life] without music,” he continued. “I was 2 years old, my mother was giving piano lessons, my father played viola, they were playing music all the times. But they didn’t want me to become a musician. At that time there were not unions, and they did not always have good experiences. They never dreamed to have a son be an international pianist.”

Speaking of dreams, Gelber has a recurring one:

“I’m dreaming that I’m on the stage with the orchestra, and the orchestra starts to play a concerto that I know very well but that I don’t have in my repertory. I try to play a little, what I know, then in the moment I cannot play any more--I wake up. It’s the same nightmare always.”

Is it a particular concerto?

“No, no, no,” he said. “If it was a particular one, I would put it in my repertory immediately!”

Gelber has few hobbies but confesses more than a passing interest in things sartorial.

“There was a time that I liked furs, and I had every fur imaginable,” he admitted. “There was a time I liked jewelry. Jewelry is nice if you’re in tails. But I keep a refined style. I’m not Liberace.”

But people interest Gelber far more than jewelry and fine clothes.

“I spend fortunes calling my friends,” he said. “I make a religion of friendship.”

* The Pacific Symphony presents Richard Strauss’ “Ein Heldenleben” and, with Bruno-Leonardo Gelber as soloist, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, “The Emperor,” tonight and Thursday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 8 p.m. $14-41 ($8 student/senior rush). (714) 556-2787.