A pianist poised between technique and poetry

Maurizio Pollini (pictured in Carnegie Hall last year) will perform with the BSO next week. (Jennifer taylor for the new york times/file)

How much of a musician's art is technique, and how much imagination? It's a question that has special significance when it comes to Maurizio Pollini, one of the sovereign pianists of his generation. An aura began to form around Pollini soon after he won the International Chopin Competition in 1960, when he was 18. One of the judges was Arthur Rubinstein, who famously remarked, "Technically, he already plays better than any of us on the jury."

The Italian pianist arrives here next week to play the Schumann Piano Concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and James Levine. He carries with him an unmistakable artistic profile that has developed during the intervening years. There is the pure, crystalline sound - somewhat less colorful than other pianists' - and the Apollonian elegance of his phrasing. Some protest that his refined objectivity robs the music of its vitality and poetry, especially in Romantic music. It's more accurate, though, to say that he strives to allow that poetry to emerge directly, with as little personal intervention as possible.

But it is Pollini's technique, married to a seriousness of purpose, that has always been his calling card. One of his signature recordings is of Pierre Boulez's mind- and finger-defying Second Piano Sonata. When it appeared in 1978, it set new standards for fluency in music that had seemed almost unperformable. Pollini didn't play the music so much as X-ray it and lay bare its foundations. He'd accomplished something similar a few years earlier in the three movements Stravinsky arranged for piano from the ballet "Petrushka."

Indeed, Pollini often achieves his best results in complex, forward-looking music, such as the works of Schoenberg, Stockhausen, and Luigi Nono. His versions of Beethoven's late sonatas are close to peerless.

He is less consistent where the challenges are less Draconian, as some recent recordings show. (All are on the Deutsche Grammophon label.) His accounts of Beethoven's first three sonatas seem to miss some of the music's revolutionary wit and invention. But two discs of Mozart concertos - with Pollini conducting the Vienna Philharmonic from the keyboard - are consistent successes. What they lack in moment-to-moment fireworks they make up for in effortless grace and strict attention to musical architecture. They sound lovely, too.

His latest is a Chopin recital, released this week. Pollini's efforts in this composer have alternately been praised and disdained for their emphasis on control and precision, and that accurately describes his buttoned-down account of the "Funeral March" Sonata. Elsewhere, though, he sounds a little less sober than usual, willing to loosen the reins during the Ballade No. 2 and the subtly inflected rhythms of the Opus 34 Waltzes.

The last time Pollini played a concerto at Symphony Hall was 1999, when he joined the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra on its American tour; curiously, the Schumann was on the bill that day as well. It is a piece that demands a tight, sympathetic rapport between soloist and conductor, and Pollini and Claudio Abbado achieved that in a strikingly unified rendition. The accomplishment is unsurprising when one considers that the two Italians share an artistic friendship that goes back more than 40 years.

Of course, it's less clear what will result next week from his collaboration with Levine, with whom he is working for the first time. But if the pianist is on his game, it is likely to be a performance where the ideals of technique and poetry both stake their claim, and are woven together as one.

Next Thursday through Saturday at Symphony Hall, Oct. 20 at Carnegie Hall in New York; 888-266-1200, www.bso.org

Opera - the reel thing
Two opera-related film events are on tap for this weekend.

The Coolidge Corner Theatre is presenting a new series called "Europe's Grand Operas." A joint venture with Boston Lyric Opera, it offers performances filmed at European opera houses last season. First up is Verdi's "Aida," recorded at La Scala and screening on Sunday. The production turned into something of a cause célèbre: During the second performance, superstar tenor Roberto Alagna stormed off stage after receiving a less-than-superstar response from La Scala's famously discriminating audience. Rest assured, he is present throughout this film, which also features soprano Violeta Urmana in the title role and Franco Zeffirelli's grandiose sets. Riccardo Chailly conducts.

Also, the Metropolitan Opera's series of high-definition simulcasts resumes tomorrow, with a live broadcast of Strauss's "Salome." Karita Mattila reprises her mesmerizing turn in the title role; James Levine conducts. It will be broadcast in 13 theaters throughout Massachusetts.

www.metopera.org, www.coolidge.org/opera