The Steinway Society serves cookies during intermission. As if that weren't reason enough to attend one of the recitals on its Piano Series, the South Bay presenter is hosting some of the country's top young pianists in its fifteenth season of concerts.

Yesterday afternoon I attended the opening recital in the Steinway Society's 2009-10 season, held at Le Petit Trianon in downtown San Jose. Sixteen-year-old piano phenomenon, Peng Peng, performed works of Bernstein (arranged by the pianist), Schumann, Ravel, Chopin, and Prokofiev. Peng Peng's approach to the piano covered the gamut of physicality and emotion. His performance of two Chopin waltzes, including the haunting A Minor Waltz, Opus 34, No. 2, stood out as the most beautiful playing of the afternoon; he voiced the waltzes pristinely, exhibiting imagination and understated elegance. In Prokofiev's Seventh Sonata, Peng Peng displayed his bravura abilities; he tore through the perpetual motion final movement with unwavering rhythmic integrity, capturing the sense of obsession which marks the finale from start to finish. Also on the program was Schumann's schizophrenic first piano sonata, which is surely one of the most elusive pieces in the repertoire. As the work jumps between ideas, particularly during its fourth and final movement, stopping, starting, and constantly changing direction, it feels to its listener like a window into Schumann's mind, adumbrating his eventual decline into madness. Peng Peng rendered the work vividly, enjoying its narrative gaps and frenetic character. It was a beautiful performance.

The atmosphere at Peng Peng's performance was friendly and casual. The audience contained a large number of families with young children, who listened to the performance and ate the cookies at intermission with equal enthusiasm. An introduction from the stage by President Sarah Clish also contributed to an audience-friendly atmosphere at the recital, one which made the afternoon particularly fun.