Boris Berman, Royal Festival Hall, London

A recital stuck in neutral

In his biography of Charles Dickens, Peter Ackroyd relates how the author had to harden his heart like Lady Macbeth in order to keep his composure during public readings of his own books. To move his audiences, he himself had to remain unmoved.

I'm not sure whether the same applies to pianists. Certainly, singers speak about the danger of, quite literally, choking with emotion. We don't expect a pianist to act out the feelings expressed in music exactly, but neither do we want him to appear detached from them.

This disturbed me in Boris Berman's recital on Wednesday. As soon as he started Chopin's Polonaise Fantaisie, there was a distinct air of expressive neutrality, as if his intention, marking out each group of five notes as they worked their way up the keyboard, were merely didactic. It was a completely coherent performance, only the climax lacking ideal clarity, yet it never took flight.

Sometimes, it's better not to see a pianist, and Berman certainly looked like a very scientific player, often changing fingers while a key was depressed to ensure a smooth legato. But that didn't work much magic in Chopin's three Opus 15 Nocturnes, and the ornamental right-hand turns in the rendition of the first were ungraceful.

Chopin's first Scherzo was solid, 100 per cent secure, but it lacked volatility, and the middle section was dull.

Yet Berman succeeded in bringing more presence to four Preludes from Debussy's second book, perhaps because of their own intrinsic objectivity. La puerta del vino sounded very robust, and General Lavine a bit too intentional to be spontaneous, let alone eccentric. But Ondine was delicately orchestrated, while La terrasse des audiences had mystery and a convincingly vaporous, nocturnal atmosphere.

Three dances from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet were a gift to such a forthright and unsentimental player. Yet Berman's plain speaking didn't do much for Prokofiev's Seventh Sonata, which, surely, has much more frightening and haunting, expressive qualities than his strictly efficient approach allowed.

The next recital in the South Bank Harros series is given by Garrick Ohlsson, who replaces Krystian Zimerman, on Wednesday 5 June, Royal Festival Hall, London SE1 (020-7960 4201)