LSO / Kissin, Barbican, London

It's hard to think of another artist who divides opinion as diametrically as Evgeny Kissin.

It's hard to think of another artist who divides opinion as diametrically as Evgeny Kissin. In two concerts, he was the soloist in all five Beethoven piano concertos, played as written chronologically: in the first concert, the Second, First and Third; in the second, the Fourth and Fifth. Kissin, of course, has a technique to die for, and after each concerto some of the capacity audience jumped to their feet, shouting and cheering as if England had won the World Cup. Yet others remained puzzled and baffled.

Technical gift does dazzle, but technique alone is not what music is about. When Kissin was a young boy, a prodigy, everything was forgiven; the message would develop, maturity would set in. But Kissin is now in his early thirties and apparently still locked into this extraordinary technique, with no musical way out.

This is the first time Kissin has attempted all five concertos as a series, but these London concerts followed earlier outings in Montpellier, Lisbon and Paris. By now, one would think, Kissin would be able to relax and enjoy the span of these works, identifying the particular characteristics of each. But rather than playing up their individuality, Kissin spreads a blandly brilliant sameness.

The Second and First belong to the world of Haydn and Mozart, yet Kissin dragged them by the scruff of the neck into the 19th century - and even occasionally the 20th, with jabbing staccato that felt more stylistically relevant to Stravinsky or Prokofiev. Time and again, Kissin assaulted the keyboard making a clangy, unpleasant sound.

Why was he happy to keep repeating this type of sound? Surely he could hear the hammers thudding too hard, the sound strangled before it could sing? But what does he listen to? In the ravishingly beautiful slow movement of the First, where was the give and take with the orchestra? In the Second's slow movement, where was the tenderness, so amply demonstrated by the orchestra, but met with misplaced studiousness?

With the Third, the most fiery of the first three and the one best suited to Kissin, the first concert ended. Would he jump up and embrace the avuncular Sir Colin Davis, who superbly navigated the admirable LSO through those treacherous pick-ups? Alas, no. The glassy look and stiffness said it all.

The Fourth and Fifth concertos had me wondering whether Kissin had ever tried an "authentic" keyboard. Surely not; it would be reduced to matchwood by the Kissin treatment. But perhaps his next attempt should be with such an instrument. Then, in the Fifth concerto, for instance, there might be a chance for the woodwind to be heard with the keyboard rather than drowned by it. A spot of chamber music, too, might do wonders for his concerto playing.