To a sold-out hall of 222 seats, fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout took to the stage Tuesday night to perform Mozart. The recital, hosted by Pegasus Early Music, was the first non-Eastman School of Music event to take advantage of this exquisite new performance space - hopefully a sign of more community-music-group concerts to come.

Intimate and beautiful, Hatch Recital Hall is the perfect size for an early-music concert. The fortepiano's wood grains were a lovely compliment to the wood grains of the space. The instrument upon the stage was its own still life.

Bezuidenhout was born in 1979 in South Africa and now resides in London. He completed his bachelors degree, then his masters degree, summa cum laude, at the Eastman School of Music. Bezuidenhout is a classical keyboardist, playing upon the fortepiano, harpsichord, and piano.

Tuesday night, Bezuidenhout delivered an all-Mozart recital of three sonatas and one fantasie, with a single sonata movement encore.

Bezuidenhout's technical approach to the keyboard continually caught my eye. Many a line of Mozart is a single note per hand, and quite often Bezuidenhout's non-engaged fingers were tightly curled. His left-hand octaves pulled his second, third, and fourth fingers high into the air. And much of the dexterity was executed strictly between his upper knuckles and his fingertips.

Why did this cause me to want to interrupt and ask a few questions? First, the rigidity of palm, wrist, elbow, shoulder, and torso can cause significant long-term stress upon the hands, resulting in injury. Second, his technical approach impacted his melody lines in the slower movements.�

It is mechanically improbable to shape a melody line when the finger approaches a 90 degree angle to the key. Consequently, each one of the slow movements suffered, whether they were adagio (as in the Sonata in F Major, K332), andante (as in the Sonata in G Major, K283), andante cantabile (as in the Sonata in B-Flat Major, K333), or an encore in andante (as in the Sonata in C Major, K330).�

These slower movements are more in the nature of songs, even to be thought of as duets between the hands, as between a woman and a man. These are the culturally appropriate lovers, coy as they tip-toe through the garden beneath the grand ballroom, where their eyes first met, and that song should come forth as a contrast to the footwork of the dance. The "dolce" markings for "sweet" are meant to be captured.

Bezuidenhout's steady-handed tempos were well done in the faster movements, the allegros and the prestos. Quick and light, the audience could feel the pulse of the dance and see the swish of the ladies' skirts coming around as they spun. Bezuidenhout's best moments were found in the allegretto movement of the Sonata in B-Flat Major, K333, where he flashed his command of the fortepiano and took us back in time to the court of Herr Mozart.

Bezuidenhout himself is tall and sprightly, and could easily be imagined as a dancer, particularly as he smiles and manages to get away with everything for which I would normally be critical: using the score, turning his own pages, putting scores on the floor, walking around the back side of the bench, and talking during a recital. But there is something genuine about him that is well suited for both this music and this instrument. Bezuidenhout is as personally connected to the classical keyboard and to Mozart as he presents himself to be.