After four bars of the opening Bach prelude, Stephen Kovacevich almost gave up, stopping while a woman in the back rattled her tissue paper. Staring gloomily at the piano, he waited while she finished, and then continued what he was doing. What he was doing was living up to his reputation as one of the most respected pianists in the world. His Bach prelude was played coldly, but the momentum of the following fugue began to show just why a recital by Kovacevich is a rare and wondrous gift. For seldom does one hear solo playing so clean, so elegant, so thoroughly competent, and at the same time so completely informed with all the qualities that are called 'musical'. Kovacevich is that unique artist who can hear and play, understand and render. He has no vulgarity and no weakness: one encounters no affectation, no clumsiness, no wilful distortion. He plays straightforwardly music's emotional content without exaggeration or timidity. Kovacevich took Beethoven's rather stiff Opus 10 Number 1 Sonata, not loosening it but playing with understated grace. The Schumann Scenes From Childhood are hardly children's pieces, but some pianists play them with coyness, with added magic. By playing the wondrous notes as Schumann wrote them, the intimacy became its own reward. Finally, the Schubert A Major Sonata, written the year of the composer's death, yet with a sense of life, colour and the most exciting textures. Kovacevich played that opening theme with the resonance of tolling bells, playing the lyrical second theme like the inevitable song contrast. Who, though, can do justice to the almost screaming middle section of the slow movement? Kovacevich skirted no edges, was never afraid to hit the sforzandis hard. The rondo finale had a joy and lyricism played with maturity, depth and, above all, joy. Stephen Kovacevich, pianist; City Hall Concert Hall; October 5