PIANIST EMANUEL AX PLEASES UNION COLLEGE CONCERT CROWD.(Preview)

SCHENECTADY -- Pianist Emanuel Ax is familiar to Capital Region audiences and so too is his typical repertoire, which seems to concentrate heavily on Mozart and Chopin, sometimes branching off toward Beethoven and Ravel.

So it came as a surprise that for a Sunday recital at the Union College Concert Series, where he's an almost annual presence, Ax was to play three works of Liszt, including the famous "Mephisto Waltz." One had thought he might be too much of a gentleman to approach such earthy and demonstrative repertoire.

Of course there was nothing to fear. The material was in more than capable hands, but the expansion of the pianist's recital repertoire …