Review: A Pianistic Master and an Upstart, 15 Years Later

Yet back then Pohjonen already had formidable technique and an exploratory streak. After winning accounts of works by Mozart, Schumann, Scriabin and Bartok, he ended that recital with fearless performances of two stunningly difficult pieces by Esa-Pekka Salonen: “Yta II” and “Dichotomie,” a wildly exuberant 17-minute piece that begins like some fractured avant-garde version of Stravinsky’s “Petrushka.”

Fifteen years later, the two pianists happened to return to New York two days apart. On Friday, Pohjonen gave an hourlong recital for an audience of about 100 in the intimate Buttenwieser Hall at the 92nd Street Y, again ending with Salonen’s “Dichotomie.” And Sunday, Pollini returned to a packed Carnegie Hall for a splendid recital of works by Brahms, Schumann and Chopin. These seemingly different pianists had more in common than you might assume: An eager musician of around 40 can also be a master of his craft; a towering artist, at 77, can still be an adventurer.

Pollini certainly took risks in the days when he championed thorny modernist works by Boulez and Nono. In recitals at Carnegie, he would play selections from Stockhausen’s monumental “Klavierstücke” series alongside Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata and “Diabelli” Variations to make the point that both composers were visionaries pushing toward new realms of the piano.

In recent years Pollini, who has grappled with periods of illness, has been hewing mostly to standard repertory, as he did Sunday. Still, his searching performance of Schumann’s seldom-heard Sonata No. 3 in F minor suggested why this work has the subtitle “Concerto Without Orchestra.” The first movement begins with a dark, majestic theme that immediately breaks into swirling turbulence. But Pollini sensitively drew out the plaintive melodic lines that penetrate the tangles of passagework and counterpoint. He managed to reconcile Schumann’s extremes, especially in the teeming finale, in which the music’s fixation on dotted-note rhythms seems at cross purposes with its dancing energy.

Since that long-ago debut at Weill, Pohjonen has won a following in New York for his regular performances with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. On Friday, he gave an elegant account of Rameau’s Suite No. 2 in G, and conveyed the episodic fervor of Scriabin’s single-movement Sonata No. 8.

He again conquered Salonen’s “Dichotomie.” The second part of the piece unfolds in passages of oscillating chords and pummeling repeated figures, until the music bursts into a long episode of sweeping glissandos, through which thematic lines and pungent chords must break through. As he did 15 years ago to ease the execution (and protect the fingers of his right hand), Pohjonen managed to quickly slip on a thin glove to dispatch the glissandos, then deftly slipped it off — a neat trick.

But, more than in 2004, he had the piece sounding alluring, with watery runs and milky colors amid bouts of pummeling chords. It no longer seemed nearly impossible. You might say he played it like a master.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.