KISSIN FINALLY NAILS RIGHT KEYS.

Byline: David Mermelstein Correspondent

Not since the heyday of Horowitz and Rubinstein has a pianist stoked public excitement the way Evgeny Kissin has. A sober Russian who will turn 29 this month, Kissin claims the most formidable keyboard technique of his generation. He has power to burn.

But Kissin is also a controversial artist, one whose fans extol his dynamism and brilliance while his detractors denigrate his absent musicality. On Sunday night, at UCLA's Royce Hall, both Kissins were on display in an evening of sharply contrasting halves.

The program was rich, Beethoven and Schumann in the first half, Brahms and some virtuoso encores in the second. But the evening began badly, with Kissin treating Beethoven's ``Tempest'' Sonata (Op. 31, No. 2) as though only hitting the right keys mattered. His fingers moved with great acuity, but little of the music's power and anguish was on display. And Kissin's tone was uncharacteristically hard-edged and even glassy at times.

In Schumann's multimovement ``Carnaval,'' among the repertory's most durable showpieces, Kissin attempted to dazzle. But, although nothing in Schumann's knotty score tripped him up - sometimes his large hands were literally a blur - this account lacked the sparkle one expects from a bravura exercise. There were, to be sure, fleeting glimpses of charm, but for the most part, there was little to differentiate one character sketch from another here.

After the intermission, however, an utterly different Kissin emerged. Suddenly, the audience had before it a pianist who understood music's potential to move. In Brahms' mighty ``Third Sonata,'' Kissin played with the kind of authority one expects from a great artist. This five-movement sonata is not an easy piece to bring off; it requires not only a mighty technique, but also a real feel for structure.

Kissin revealed his mastery from the start, in a first movement that contained a near rainbow of colors. Kissin's sound is a big one, but even when pushed, it never threatens to splinter. In the right music, the peals from his piano are thrilling to behold. Yet, when he scales back, as he did in the second movement of this sonata, a rich, pearly tone can emerge, capable of casting a dreamy spell. Later in the Brahms, Kissin displayed some of the extraordinary control for which he is justly famous, adding flair to his interpretation.

Four encores followed, beginning with Franz Liszt's transcription of Schumann's wistful ``Widmung'' (``Dedication''), which Kissin played in a florid but still touching fashion. His performance of a souped-up version of a Johann Strauss Jr.'s ``Die Fledermaus'' overture - arranged by Alfred Grunfeld - was nothing short of stunning, and Chopin's ``Revolutionary'' Etude (Op. 10, No. 12) was played in the grand manner of past masters. But it was Leopold Godowsky's arrangement of a tango by Isaac Albeniz that swept the audience away with its sweet ethereal quality.

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Pianist Evgeny Kissin's performance at UCLA's Royce Hall on Sunday night started with an unsatisfactory attempt at Beethoven, but finished strongly.