BRENDEL'S COMPLETELY WONDERFUL RENDERING OF BEETHOVEN SONATAS.

Byline: Donna Perlmutter Special to the Daily News

People are known, so the saying goes, by the company they keep. For Alfred Brendel that company is Beethoven - not exclusively, of course, but with a rigorous commitment that puts him among the anointed.

Why? Because the music contained in Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas represents a great chronicle of the human condition, no less so than the works of Shakespeare and Dostoevsky. And that's saying nothing of the technical demands therein.

Anyone who plays them all automatically invites the attention of klieg lights. Nearly half a century passed before the Austrian pianist became the first to do so at Carnegie Hall. Over the last three decades he has recorded the complete cycle twice, published two collections of his essays on the subject and regularly performed the famous 32 in music capitals everywhere.

Tuesday he came to Los Angeles. Predictably, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion drew a gathering of the devout. It was, after all, the 65-year-old musician's seventh and final installment here of the Beethoven cycle, focusing on the last - some say unconquerable - trilogy: Opus 109, Opus 110 and Opus 111.

There were, to be sure, any number of pianists and aficionados in the near-capacity crowd, as well as many Philharmonic players. But, as Brendel has noted, even deeply serious listeners are unaware of being reduced to onlookers at a circus - where "the interpreter puts himself on display: a juggler, tightrope-walker and trapeze-artist of piano-playing."

Still, Brendel represents the Mount Olympus of Beethoven champions. So his assessment falls a little short. It certainly didn't explain why nearly 3,200 people sat fixed on his lone figure seated at the keyboard.

They also came for his particular brand of pianism, which - with its high-mindedness and depth of conviction, its clarity of design and purpose - projected throughout. Everything from the beatific to the darkest pessimism to innocent humor could be heard.

Whether it was the opening bars of Opus 109, which he delivered as a light romp that had begun in the wings, or later the punishing 23 measures of constant trills that seamlessly resolved into a state of peace, Brendel became Beethoven's voice. He did the same in Opus 110, by way of the final fugue's powerful dramatic argument and in Opus 111, where no tinkering with expressive detail betrayed the message.

In all three works he demonstrated heart over mind or fingers. And contrary to the criticism that his playing can be dry, this listener heard nothing of the kind. Only compelling utterances with no excess baggage, no misplaced remonstrations, no insincere or rambling thoughts.

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PHOTO

Photo Alfred Brendel performs all of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas.