While a torrent of superlatives from a critic might indicate collusion or some ulterior agenda, I must call the recital by Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa, Sunday, February 8 for the Steinway Society the Bay Area at San Jose’s Le Petit Trianon Theatre “astonishing.” In a program of Rachmaninov, Beethoven, Schumann, Thalberg, and Liszt, Ms. Lisitsa--a graduate of the Kiev Conservatory--demonstrated both a prowess and sensitivity for her chosen repertory that almost defies description. Armed with a Charles Bronson set of forearms and a high wrist position, Lititsa manages the most daunting stretches, spans, and roulades with easy finesse, while every note finds a bell-like clarity of articulation that allows her to place any dramatic cannon, lyrical accent, or harmonized color exactly where she wants it.

By the time Lisitsa completed her rousing second encore, the Liszt perennial Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C-sharp Minor--the first having been the B-flat Major “Rosamunde” Impromptu of Schubert--the audience had thoroughly been vanquished by her applications of rubato and bold fioritura, a ravishing arsenal of techniques and startling sonority to pound or caress detractors into willing submission. She had opened with a Rachmaninov group that included the Etude-Tableau in A Minor, Op. 39, No. 6, a fiercely demonic color-piece that the composer once compared to Little Red Riding Hood. Well, the wolf certainly loped after her, and the two exchanged chromatic runs and agogic marches that had our hearts pulsing. Then four preludes of varied temperament, from the pearly G Major, Op. 32, No. 5 to the fiery G Minor, Op. 23, No. 5, a counterpart to Chopin’s Military Polonaise. If the G-sharp Minor displayed Lisitsa’s left hand, the B Minor--what the composer called “The Return”--had us in poised, dramatic thrall. Whenever Lititsa applied her light, feathery upper register, we felt that the spirit of Benno Moiseiwitshch, Rachmaninov’s favorite pianist, walked among us once more.

Next, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 23 in F Minor, Op. 57 “Appassionata,” which unfolded as tailor-mode for Lisitsa’s alternately soberly lyric and explosive sensibilities. The Allegro assai proceeded with strong accentuation of the “fate” motif, Lisitsa’s projecting a rock-hard patina on her Steinway that might have owed debts to Sviatoslav Richter. If the final page shattered our complacency, the theme and four variants that comprise the Andante con moto lulled us with liquid filigree. The transition to the breathless Allegro final movement alerted us that tragic resignation would reign over the most tumultuous figures, whose concluding peroration had the audience already wild with enthusiasm.

The second half of the concert allowed Schumann’s poetic side, Eusebius, to muse reflectively on nostalgic innocence by means of the Kinderszenen, Op. 15 (1838). Often conceived as thoughtfully harmonized marches, the suite of thirteen pieces projects any number of fairy-tale affects, occasionally contrapuntal or syncopated with three-hand effects. The ever-popular Traumerei rivaled Horowitz for demure assertion, while At the Fireside seemed to take a page from one of Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words. Even the more triumphant maerchen never violated the sacred precincts of dynamic ardor, so that a robust mezzo-forte more than spoke for a world of minor victories. When the Poet spoke, a rapt silence befitted the huge fermata Lisitsa imposed on the last note, and the spontaneous applause might have been a spasmodic intrusion.

The last two offerings of the recital proper took us to the unabashed world of the bravura virtuoso, first with Sigismond Thalberg’s Grande fantasie on Themes from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Op. 63, a splashy, potpourri of arias and ensembles from Rossini’s opera buffa, rife with nocturnal episodes and all sorts of cascade effects, the last pages of which might have delighted Chico Marx. But the piece de resistance had to be Lisitsa’s monumental rendering of the Liszt Totentanz (1865) in the solo piano version--not that the lack of an orchestra made the slightest difference to Lisitsa’s symphonic palette--a huge paraphrase of the Dies Irae from the Requiem Mass that assumes any number of guises as funeral march, triumphal march, Bach fugue, and the Devil’s own laughter. The sheer scope of Lisitsa’s palette conjured comparisons with the likes of Bolet and Michelangeli, for dynamic energy and kaleidoscopic colors, each of which urged trills, bel canto arioso, and wicked syncopations forward in s most thrilling display, the likes of which evinced literal whoops of admiration from a grateful, sated audience.