For his latest appearance in The Irish Times/NCH Celebrity Series at the NCH on Saturday, pianist Andras Schiff undertook a rather risky programme. Scarlatti sonatas are usually served up in small doses, half-a-dozen or so if a performer is being generous. I don't think I've ever encountered a pianist, before Schiff, who wanted to spend half a recital on them. With over 500 to choose from, it shouldn't be too difficult to find a satisfactorily varied selection. But Schiff somehow failed to do this, or at least his playing failed to persuade one that he'd been able to do so.

His sense of caprice, as expressed in his choice of rubato, voicing, and even tempo, had a sort of levelling effect. It was a caprice too much concerned with niceness and politeness. The ugly strumming which Scarlatti periodically turns to - his strange harmonic leaps, his demanding physical ones - all somehow failed to find their mark.

Sadly, things didn't improve in the second half. Schiff set a tempo for the opening movement of Haydn's E minor Sonata which seemed to stretch him beyond the delivery of clear articulation. And the Schumann Concerto for Orchestra is a piece best given a wide berth if you're only going to scan it, as Schiff seemed to be doing, for extractable melody rather than the more important matter of shape-providing harmony.

In Schiff's hands, there was lots of sound and fury, but little impression of any real message behind it. The slow movement of Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata, given as an encore, served only to confirm the impression that this was an evening during which Schiff was being heard at far from his best.