French pianist Alain Planès has made good (and sometimes great) recordings of everything he played on his Sunday recital (see my recent review of the conclusion of his complete Debussy set). The event was sponsored by the Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences, as the third concert of what is, regrettably, its last season of concerts presented off the campus of the National Institutes of Health. In an unforgettable juxtaposition, the early start time of this recital, at 3 p.m. instead of the usual 4 p.m., made the concert overlap with the much louder dance music of the D.J. at a bar mitzvah party in the next room at Bethesda’s Congregation Beth-El. Even with a late start, to allow the loudspeakers to fall silent, pre-teen noise and chatter continued throughout much of this keenly anticipated recital, an unfortunate comedy of errors.

The opening work, Haydn’s Sonata No. 31 (A-flat major, Hob. XVI:46), was brilliantly virtuosic, subtly melodic, generously pedaled, and gracefully phrased. The Rococo figuration in the third movement was played as consummately ornate filigree decoration, and the languid middle movement revealed Planès taking great care with the contrapuntal voicings. The Classically oriented first half concluded with Schubert’s fourth sonata (A minor, D. 537), which had a few missed notes here and there, in spite of Planès using a score (as he did throughout this recital). It was the varied colors and shaping of melodic lines around the daunting masses of notes, the full chords and vivid rhythmic patterns, that made this Schubert so satisfying. A brooding first movement, alternately forthright and introverted, was matched nicely by the tense, even sotto voce second movement.