Shhhhh! Emotions At Work

Some pianists, when performing Schumann’s “Kinderszenen,” offer bold emotional contrasts, loudly evoking what seems like a disturbed childhood. But when Stephen Kovacevich played the work on Thursday, it felt as if he were whispering a bedtime story, inviting the audience to share memories almost too private to reveal.

Stephen Kovacevich played Schumann, Bach and Beethoven at the Metropolitan Museum.

It was a welcome chance to experience live the artistry of Mr. Kovacevich, known through his prolific recordings but a relatively infrequent visitor to New York. Mr. Kovacevich (formerly known as Stephen Bishop), who was born in Los Angeles but has long lived in London, performed in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

He never ventured above mezzo forte in the Schumann, offering sotto voce reflections instead of Technicolor playbacks. His playing was whimsical and haunting, although for all its evocative delicacy and almost surreal intimacy, it occasionally sounded too monochrome, needing a splash of color.

There were swaths of color in Mr. Kovacevich’s eloquently profound reading of Bach’s Partita No. 4, which opened the program. In a performance notable for its graceful poise and distinguished here again by its intimacy, he offered spirited contrasts between movements, which included a mystical Allemande; a lively, pristinely articulated Courante; and a virtuosic, fiery Gigue, all illuminated with fluid legato and a beautiful sound.

There was a certain Gouldian eccentricity about Mr. Kovacevich’s onstage manner, as he sat extremely low on the piano stool and hummed audibly throughout the evening. After finishing the Bach, he said he was freezing, and a heater was placed onstage during intermission.

Mr. Kovacevich certainly sounded warmed up during Beethoven’s “Diabelli” Variations, which ended the concert. Beethoven wrote the work after a request from Anton Diabelli, an enterprising music publisher, who sent out a waltz he had composed to dozens of composers (including Schubert, Liszt and Czerny) and asked each to write a variation on his theme. Beethoven eventually wrote 33 remarkable variations on the annoying tune (a sort of 19th-century cellphone jingle), like a sculptor creating a masterpiece out of insignificant scraps.

It almost seemed as if a different pianist were playing after intermission, as Mr. Kovacevich delved into the variations with full-blooded conviction and a robust sound. He deftly conveyed the wildly divergent characteristics of the work and explored the varying moods — from lighthearted and playful to enigmatic and profound — with vivid distinctions.

The pianist Gabriela Montero gives the next recital in the PianoForte series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on March 6; (212) 570-3949, metmuseum.org.

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