I will happily—enthusiastically—bring a can to the next performance I attend at CSULB's Daniel Recital Hall if it will prevent from happening again what happened to Spanish pianist Pedro Carboné on Saturday afternoon.

The whole afternoon was comic in its abundance and variety of distraction. Flash photos during the performance. Conversations in the back of the hall audible at the front. People leaving in the middle of the performance through the FRONT of the house. Videotapes noisily switched out from cameras. Epic coughing, emphysemic in its depth, persistence, and texture.

A review, particularly of such a rare performance as Saturday's, shouldn't have to degrade into a screed on concert decorum, but listening to music, at its core, is the experience of organized sound. If you're eating a steak dinner, you don't expect a stranger to drop by your table and pour marshmallow sauce on the plate. Same difference, from my perspective. Not to say I haven't been guilty of infractions as well. My wife and I polished off a bottle of Pinot Grigio at the Hollywood Bowl one year and caught a case of the giggles during an egregiously bad performance of Beethoven's fifth. I'm not playing “Quieter Than Thou.” But please.

Albeniz' "Iberia" suite, familiar to contemporary audiences in piecemeal, mostly in orchestral transcription, is phenomenally difficult to play in its original form. It places an inordinate number of demands on the player, requiring an encyclopedia of technique. It's harmonically dense, emotionally multi-layered, and moves from wisp to thunder in a blink. The Spanish spirit resides in the heart of the work, as varied as its displays are throughout. Sentimental, ironic, defiant, fiery, poetic—a sophisticated work requiring the nerves of a trapeze artist and the concentration of a Trappist monk.

Carboné, a protégé of both Eugene Istomin and Leon Fleisher, has a notable affection for, and intuitive understanding of, this sprawling, knotted piece. His interpretation is both idiosyncratic and idiomatic, both a deeply personal account and a faithful recitation. Carefully shaded coloring, intelligent pacing, and sheer endurance were the hallmarks Saturday afternoon. Even the sporadic arid passages came to life. The delirious “Lavapies” from the third book (the work is divided into four books of three movements each) was hair-raising.

Of course, much of the atmospheric tension had been methodically taken away during the performance. The impact didn't quite build to what it could have been. Some halls provide cough drops for their audiences. Maybe we need to think about expanding that list to include coffee, albuterol, and digital cameras.

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