E-Mail This Article to a Friend Command and control Krystian Zimerman, plus Handel and Chadwick BY DAVID WEININGER

Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman has a reputation for exactitude. He spends, it’s said, years perfecting his interpretations of a narrow repertoire, and his concert appearances are few, especially in America. But his desire for accuracy goes beyond musical execution itself. He told an interviewer in 2002 that not only does he bring his own piano on tour with him, he rebuilds his instrument depending on the program he’s performing. A pianist needs a lighter touch to play Mozart than Brahms, the thinking goes, so why not reconfigure the piano as well as the playing style? Such a level of technical preparation is extraordinary, even by today’s standards. "I am a total freak on this," Zimerman told his interviewer. "You cannot imagine how much it costs and compromises."

For all the careful preparation, though, Zimerman, who’ll be here next Saturday to play a Bank of America Celebrity Series recital, doesn’t come off as a bloodless perfectionist. Elegance may be his calling card, but he has a deep vein of Romanticism, as he showed in a host of performances and recordings with Leonard Bernstein in the 1980s. His best performances are both meticulous and full of vitality, as is attested by the recordings of the two Ravel concertos he made a few years ago with Pierre Boulez and the Cleveland Orchestra. Here were two masters of clarity, and they not only brought out the full range of colors in these exquisitely colored works but brought them to vivid life as well.

Released about six months ago by Deutsche Grammophon, Zimerman’s most recent offering is of Rachmaninov’s first two concertos with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa. Yes, they’ve been a long time coming — the Second was recorded in 2000, the First in 1997. The marriage of fire and precision is at once apparent at the beginning of the earlier work, as Zimerman brings transparency and sharp-edged rhythms to his delivery of the thunderous opening cadenza. Usually a burst of bravura sound, that cadenza here has shape and design as well. The famous opening chords of the Second are likewise taken slowly but with an arch sense of intensity. As for the virtuoso fingerwork in both pieces, Zimerman not only plays the notes nimbly but allows them to dance. The orchestra and its former music director provide exuberant support.

It’s anybody’s guess how Zimerman will configure his piano for his Jordan Hall recital, whose program ranges from Mozart (the C-major Sonata K.330) to Ravel (the strange and beautiful Valses nobles et sentimentales). There’s also a hefty helping of Chopin: the Fourth Ballade, the Opus 24 Mazurkas, and the same "Funeral March" Sonata that Maurizio Pollini played in his Bank of America Celebrity Series recital a week and a half back. That’s November 13 at 8 p.m., Jordan Hall is at 30 Gainsborough Street in Boston, and tickets are $42 to $57; call (617) 482-6661.

EXODUS AND REVISITING. Hot on the heels of Boston Baroque performances of Handel’s most popular opera, Giulio Cesare, Emmanuel Music presents his most popular oratorio, Israel in Egypt. Handel relied exclusively on Biblical texts in his epic retelling of the Israelites’ exodus from under Pharaoh’s thumb, and he put almost all the vocal weight on the chorus, with a minimum of solo arias. That might explain the cool public reaction the piece received when it was premiered in London in 1739, but now we can see that it’s a magnificent achievement, a mere notch or two below Messiah, with the treatment of the plagues visited on Egypt containing some of the most vividly pictorial music Handel would ever write. Emmanuel offers the local premiere of the final 1757 version, which has many arias and choruses not previously heard in these parts. Craig Smith conducts the sole performance, also on the 13th, at 7:30 p.m. at Emmanuel Church, 15 Newbury Street in Boston. Tickets are $20 to $50; call (617) 536-3356.

Finally, New England Conservatory celebrates the 150th birthday of the Lowell-born composer and former NEC director George Whitfield Chadwick on Monday November 15. Those who heard Neeme Järvi and the BSO play the composer’s Third Symphony last year may be sated from the experience, but for the curious, NEC will provide a panel discussion at 4 p.m. and a concert at 8 in Jordan Hall. The latter will offer excerpts from Chadwick’s opera The Padrone as well as his Fifth String Quartet and assorted overtures. Both events are free; call (617) 585-1100.