Music : Schub Offers Conventional Recital

What Andre-Michel Schub played best, at his recital at the South Bay Center for the Arts, Saturday night, was a little Bartok, the famous “Allegro Barbaro” and the also-cherishable “Out of Doors” suite.

In both, the French-born American pianist displayed again his reliable note-honesty and integrated musicality, while adding a measure of personal interest he does not always bring to the fore. There was heat and color in this Bartok, even a sense of conviction.

Schub does not often achieve that much. An accomplished technician whose playing acknowledges stylistic differentiations, the 38-year-old musician seems seldom to project a sense of mission or communication in the music he essays. He pays attention but his energy and, subsequently, any real connection to his audience, often flags.

His unprovocative Marsee Auditorium recital program needed personality to make it come to life.

It began with Mendelssohn’s “Variations Serieuses,” moved through Beethoven’s still-enigmatic Sonata in A-flat, Opus 26, and the Bartok group, and ended with Schubert: the popular Impromptus in E-flat and A-flat minor of Opus 90, and the “Wanderer” Fantasy.”