MUSIC REVIEW : Pianist Andrea Lucchesini in L.A. Debut at Ambassador

Andrea Lucchesini is a pianist of manifold, quirky, often glorious, sometimes exasperating contradictions. Touted as the heir to Michelangeli and Pollini, he wears their mantle most individually.

Just 22 years old, Lucchesini is already a competition and CD celebrity. Thursday evening at Ambassador Auditorium, he made his local debut with a generous, strenuous program.

The Italian’s repertory seems strictly Romantic, bounded by Beethoven at one end, Liszt at the other. He favors big works--or at least big collections of little works.

Lucchesini is not one of those brisk, objective technicians who content themselves with simply setting out the notes. He is obsessively interpretive, barbering and perfuming each line with exquisite attention to detail.

The cumulative result of this style, as applied to Schumann’s Fantasy in C, Opus 17, was a fracturing of the larger structure. One came to despair of ever hearing the end of the piece, with the pianist slowing in caressive farewells to every phrase.

Lucchesini championed Clementi’s Sonata in A, Opus 50, No. 1, in similar manner. He suggested a Clementi more influenced by Chopin than Beethoven, a Clementi of elegance and muted passion, delivered as a compilation of beautiful moments.

Do not imagine, though, that Lucchesini’s playing is necessarily fey or abstracted. He plays quickly and cleanly, with heroic technique. In full passages, he could sound clotted and harsh, and clinkers popped out at unexpected moments. But his command of the keyboard is real and far-reaching.

The second half of Lucchesini’s recital was given over to the 24 Preludes of Chopin’s Opus 28. Here his short-term, live-for-the-moment, approach worked wonderfully, providing a world of nuance in miniature frames, as might be expected of the fleeting pieces that begin the sequence.

More surprising, given the predilections apparent on the first half, Lucchesini worked to even greater effect in the larger numbers. The pivotal Prelude in D flat emerged with richly limned affection, and grew to a convincingly proportioned, well-connected edifice. Lucchesini tended to extremes of tempo, but always reached his destinations with assurance and purpose.