It wasn't quite like expecting Judy Garland and getting Julie London instead, but close.
Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire, who has a wonderfully warm-hearted approach to the keyboard, was scheduled to give a recital Sunday evening for the 50th anniversary season finale of Shriver Hall Concert Series. When he canceled just a few days before, the organization secured a first-rate replacement, Till Fellner, an Austrian with a much cooler temperament.
As Fellner launched into Schumann's "Papillons" at the top of Sunday's program, there was no mistaking the intellectual solidity of the music-making. But for those of us fond of a singing tone and sensual, rhythmically elastic phrasing, the sort that Freire has so long produced, there were disappointments.
In that Schumann score, Fellner tended to hammer out melodic lines, missing, for example, the vocal quality in the theme that emerges amid the propulsion of the B-flat Waltz. Likewise, the lyrical side of Beethoven's Sonata No. 13 did not always register.
That said, Fellner's pristine technique and firm sense of musical structure never failed to impress. He moved the Beethoven sonata along with a tensile force. And his account of Schumann's C major Fantasie had compelling intensity. If the middle movement could have used a broader dynamic range, the drive certainly hit the spot; the outer movements achieved a good deal of expressive weight.
Most satisfying of all was Fellner's refined, poetic performance of Luciano Berio's "Cinque Variazioni." The inclusion of such a challenging 20th-century piece was welcome enough (not your typical Shriver Hall fare); the brilliance and insight of the playing made it all the more memorable.
Fellner proved particularly compelling in the closing measures, his articulation superbly judged. The music slipped slowly away from earshot, but the performance stayed in the ear long after.