Fou Ts'ong Piano Recital HK Cultural Centre Concert Hall Plays with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta tonight and Thursday in City Hall Concert Hall Idiosyncratic, unpredictable, at times erratic or unwieldy, but not without epiphanies - the least you could say about Fou Ts'ong's 70th birthday recital was that it wasn't dull. The Shanghai-born pianist, who established an international reputation in the 1950s and has since been revered by Chinese communities, opened with Haydn's Sonata in F, Hob XVI/29. Fou's heavy articulation might exasperate period performance purists, but he produced a lively flow that was beautiful without needing any academic justification. His interpretation of the slow movement was enthralling, and he played the third movement with wit and energy. Fou's performance of the next piece, Mozart's K540 Adagio, had some inspired tragic moments, but overall was too heavy-footed. A powerful but occasionally loose-jointed performance of Schubert's unfinished Sonata D840, Reliquie, followed. Fou emphasised the ominous bass themes of the first movement to bring out a sinister atmosphere of symphonic proportions; his highly strung unravelling of the second movement was admirable. The concert's second half began with Chinese-born composer Soong Fu-yuan's Four Poems for the Piano (1990), which was inspired by classical Chinese literature and history. Fou successfully captured the impressionistic tone of each piece, be it lyrical, ruminative, raging or rhapsodic. The recital ended with Chopin's Four Mazurkas, Op. 41, and his Sonata No2. Chopin was Fou's speciality; his rhythmic grasp of the Mazurkas was exemplary, enlivening the shifting mood of the music with finesse. Then, unfortunately, the first movement of the Sonata became a mire of wrong notes in which the old man valiantly trudged along. Things improved afterwards, and Fou played the Funeral March third movement with much tension and turbulence. The finale was fittingly delivered like a gale of hammered-out notes.