I knew Roberto — one of Enrique Graf’s top protégés — during his student days around ten years ago. Even then, I was very impressed with him, particularly his blazing, near-flawless technique; there was nothing he couldn’t play, and brilliantly. But I sometimes wondered whether his heart was as fully engaged as his busy hands. There often seemed to be more display going on than true artistry.

But what a difference ten years can make. Berrocal — after graduate studies at New England Conservatory — has gone on to a successful career as a concert pianist, teacher and opera accompanist/vocal coach. Super-tenor Placido Domingo even invited Berrocal to join his National Opera in Washington, DC, but he chose to stick with his current position with the New World School of the Arts in Miami. Perhaps the challenges of working with singers has helped to liberate his emotions and taught him something of music’s interpretive ebb and flow — and the way that even piano music should “breathe,” as a singer does. Whatever we have to thank for his musical growth, Tuesday’s recital was the work of a truly exceptional and fully mature musician.

He began his program with Josef Haydn’s Sonata No. 50 in C major: a particularly challenging number that he wrote for a renowned English virtuoso. I wonder if I’ve ever heard more exquisite Haydn in concert. Berrocal’s playing was crystal-clear, elegant and beautifully nuanced — with very natural phrasing and uncanny dynamic control. He captured the tricky finale’s wit and humor perfectly, teasing his listeners with the music’s playful stops and starts.

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s six Moments Musicaux came off just as well, but in different ways. Berrocal met every one of the composer’s formidable technical challenges, while projecting the music’s over-the-top emotion, epic sweep and nervous intensity very convincingly. But, more importantly, he laid bare Rachmaninoff’s manic-depressive personality — especially his quintessentially Russian brand of melancholy (Rachmaninoff, like many of his Russian compatriots, was no stranger to long-term misery).

After halftime, it was on to a work I had never heard in concert before: Spanish composer Manuel de Falla’s fascinatingly impressionistic and colorful Fantasia Baetica. Written for the legendary virtuoso Artur Rubinstein, It’s based on native themes from the southern Spanish region of Andalusia: the home of Flamenco. Berrocal served it up with the kind of natural flair and idiomatic authenticity that only a native Spaniard could muster.

The finale — Franz Liszt’s show-stopping Spanish Rhapsody — was a very grand finale, indeed. Berrocal dove into this formidable piece with great gusto and skill, astounding his listeners with Liszt’s seemingly impossible keyboard wizardry. I heard him play Liszt when he was a student — but this time, Berrocal balanced his knuckle-busting bravura playing with a sense of interpretive and emotional depth that made the music complete. Check out Roberto’s blazing performance of this piece on YouTube.

You’ve probably guessed by now that I’ve been following C of C’s world-class piano program closely for some time now. After all, the piano’s my instrument, too … but my main motivation is that it’s such an incredibly rewarding process to follow the transformation of talented kids into finished musicians. And I was blessed last Tuesday to witness one of the program’s most brilliant end products. Bravo, Roberto!

Malina and friends kicked off the evening with Mozart’s delightful Serenata Notturna. In many ways, it’s a typical example of his half-dozen serenades that were written mostly for his royal patron’s many snooty social events. But, in other ways, this one’s different. With only 3 movements (most have around twice that), it’s one of the shortest serenades — and it’s orchestrated in a unique way, with a string quartet performing concertante-style from within its supporting orchestra.

Mozart may well have been playing a joke on his royal boss with music that seems to poke fun at the stylized pomposity of court life. The players brought out the music’s mock-dignity and tongue-in-cheek satire very nicely as the quartet wove its way in and out of the contrasting orchestral fabric. Concertmaster Yuriy Bekker was given carte-blanche to ham it up in his solo violin cadenza — and he had his audience tittering as he dredged up bits and pieces of other Mozart faves, as well as a snippet from “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Mozart — a notorious (and sometimes crude) buffoon — would’ve loved it!

Next came the sublime part: a modern work based on Mozart’s heavenly motet, Ave Verum Corpus. One of his final works, it’s a marvel of subtle and achingly beautiful harmonic shifts. While it was written for choir, the CSO delivered a sweet and touching instrumental version of it.

Enter emerging American composer Daniel Kellogg, who was present to introduce his Mozart’s Hymn to the substantial crowd — a short work for sixteen strings that was commissioned by a French orchestra a few years ago. The players laid down a mostly soft and shimmering bed of string sonorities, with clusters of instruments drifting to the fore, then receding. Before long, Mozart’s lovely harmonies began peeking out from within the hazy orchestral tapestries … absolutely magical!

As you’ll soon see, the final two program items were linked, too — besides the ongoing association to Mozart. Meanwhile, Malina and company proceeded to tear into the bustling Finale of Josef Haydn’s Symphony No. 45. Its nickname, the “Farewell symphony,” comes from the not-so-subtle symphonic hint that Haydn built into the piece. His musicians had been kept overlong by their royal employer at his isolated summer estate in Hungary, and morale was low. So Haydn (who loved a good joke) slowed his musicians down to a sedate Adagio, then had them gradually stop playing one or two at a time, take their music and leave the stage (the boss sent them home the next day). You don’t often hear this one with the crowd giggling as the musicians re-enact the original joke.

The connection wasn’t apparent until the final work, Moz-Art a-la Haydn, by modern Russian/German composer Alfred Schnittke. It featured a pair of solo violinists (Alan Molina and Adda Kridler), backed up by separate mini-string orchestras with a single double-bass between them . We first heard — in total darkness — the players noodling around with various theme-snippets from an obscure Mozart fragment — then the lights came back up suddenly, just as everybody came together in a big tremolo crash. Then they took off again, in what amounts to pure musical slapstick … as Malina pointed out in his remarks, almost like what you hear in a cartoon soundtrack. The soloists took part in the musical mayhem, with comic exchanges and one of them (Kridler) playing while de-tuning her instrument. Towards the end — just as in the Haydn — the musicians gradually stopped playing, meandering off the stage a few at a time as the lights go down, until there’s only the conductor beating time to the single double-bass. Funny stuff!

It’s good to know that serious musicians (both composers and performers) can let their hair down now and then … and it’s even better to hear a classical crowd laugh out loud.

He led off with WA Mozart’s lovely Piano Sonata in D major, K. 576, dispatching the opening allegro with crisp articulation and finesse — even as his hands were chasing each other around the keyboard. The more pensive moments of the Adagio movement came off with crystalline delicacy and lovely tone. I was impressed with his adroit filigree work in the finale, in true keeping with the clarity and grace that Mozart demands.

From there, it was on to Frederic Chopin’s multicolored Ballade No. 3 in A-flat, a work that presents sticky technical challenges (I know — I’ve played it!) and a wide range of expressive possibilities. He captured the innocent whimsy of the opening bars nicely, before going on to deliver the piece’s moments of mystery, blazing drama and final triumph with lovely phrasing, dynamic contrast and excellent technique. This is one of Chee Hang’s signature pieces; I heard him play it last spring. While he brought it off here with more dash and passion than last time, he could’ve made his performance even more gripping with a more “liberated” sense of emotional abandon and intensity.

Next we heard Sergei Prokofiev’s varied and difficult Piano Sonata No. 2 in D minor: the work that established the composer’s mature piano style. Prokofiev was himself a brilliant piano virtuoso, and seldom made things easy for his players. Chee Hang handled the opening Allegro movement very well, shifting seamlessly between its downward-crashing first theme and the ethereally lyrical theme that follows. He brought out the short Scherzo’s motoric drive with near-violence, before retreating into the dark lyricism and seething tension (plus a couple of stormy climaxes) of the Andante movement. He handled the playful finale beautifully, with particular flair in the jazzy second theme, before driving on to a brilliant finish.

The program ended with a distinct bang, as Chee Hang barreled his way through Percy Grainger’s wild and headlong In Dahomey — or “Cakewalk Smasher” — and absolutely smashing it was. He delivered its ragtime-flavored antics and many moments of humor with skill and spirit, while showing off a bunch of unusual keyboard tricks (like underhanded crossovers and punching chords with his fist). It was quite a showpiece— and a great way to end a memorable recital.

Oh — and on top of all else, another of Chee Hang’s alter egos is as a piano comedian, a-la Victor Borge. If you’d like to see and hear him in action in a comedic version of the above Grainger piece, check out the videos on his website.