He performed Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini at the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra's concert Thursday night, which repeats tonight, with undeniable ease.

Anyone familiar with the piece knows there's nothing easy about it.

The work consists of 24 challenging variations, each with powerful, wide-spanning chords, impressionistic rolls across the keyboard and other bouts of virtuosity.

None of the work's demands seemed to cause Dichter to break a sweat.

As precisely and rapidly as Dichter's fingers traversed the piano, he would have difficulty convincing someone that just years ago his right hand was unusable and his career in question.

This was the first time Rochester audiences had heard Dichter since his 2006 decline and following surgery, and I'm doubtful that any long-time fans in the packed audience would have been able to tell any difference.

In a recent interview, Dichter, the silver medalist at the 1966 Tchaikovsky Competition, says he's playing better than ever.

Even in the 18th variation, which inverts the main theme into a passionate serenade (one that audiences would surely recognize), Dichter didn't bask in Rachmaninoff's romantics. He kept it moving along, sitting back and enjoying the ride, as if he were reliably on autopilot.

Christopher Seaman, who was conducting, gave Dichter a big high-five after the performance, the kind you might see from baseball team members after a home run.

The RPO always does well with the swashbuckling, blockbuster-type scores it performed on the rest of the program: Corigliano's Gazebo Dances, an energetic work with a country carnival atmosphere, and Elgar's In the South, a fanciful, noble piece that reminds me of Strauss' action-packed tone poems.

The brass section performed valiantly, and in a more wistful section of the Elgar, principal violist Melissa Matson emerged with a thoughtful solo.

Schubert's Unfinished Symphony came after intermission, but the work's transparency diverged from the rest of the program. Clarinetist Kenneth Grant provided a rounded cover to oboist Erik Behr's tightly centered tone in a unison duet in the work's first movement, and both musicians kept shapely lines in their second movement solos.

Anna Reguero • Staff music critic • April 17, 2010