Ax's brand of virtuosity - command rather than flash - was manifested throughout his recital at Jordan Hall, presented by Celebrity Series of Boston. Rhythms were flexible, but with authority and momentum; accumulations of notes were shaded into pellucid clarity, each pitch ringing with purpose, even amidst thick chords or contrapuntal traffic. To seem simply a conduit for the music, as Ax did, demonstrated a deep and seamless artistry.
Ax opened with early Beethoven, the Sonata in A Major (Op. 2, No. 2). The young Beethoven was in aural love with the piano's multiple sonic personalities. Themes bounce from high to low, accompaniments are embroidered in a multitude of patterns, scintillating ornamentation becomes a resonant end in itself. Ax did justice to the full range. He started out by pointing up each contrast in dynamics and articulation: Beethoven the awkward guest, excitable, moody, and disdaining small talk. As the piece went on, he shifted the dichotomies from moment-by-moment to section-by-section, the temperamental rhetoric coalescing into confident sculpture.
In between the sonatas was music by Robert Schumann, whose mercurial, protean forms were well-served by Ax's direct, robust phrasing: He immediately found the core of each new mood, making vibrant and entrancing what, in lesser hands, could be merely attention-deficient.
Ax used a near-continuous but unobtrusive rubato to stitch the variegated sections of the Op. 20 "Humoreske" into a convincing whole that still gave free rein to Schumann's unorthodox whim. With drive and lilt, Ax emphasized the choreography in the masked-ball snapshots of the Op. 2 "Papillons." The dancers returned for an encore, Frédéric Chopin's Waltz in A Minor (Op. 34, No. 2). Like the rest of the program, one felt that this simply was how the music should go.
