The Labeque sisters are understandably the apple...

The Labeque sisters are understandably the apple of the media’s eye. Chic, effervescent guests of both late-night and early-morning television hosts, featured in their stylish, adjoining Paris apartments in a recent “Architectural Digest” article, Katia and Marielle are the kind of performers tailor-made for the image-conscious ‘80s.

Just beneath the surface of this image, however, are uncompromising musicians who are not about to exchange their musical birthright for the pottage of media acclaim. For their local debut in La Jolla’s Sherwood Hall this evening, the Labeques have programmed a two-piano version of Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from “Westside Story” and Bela Bartok’s demanding, atonal Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion.

“The audience may come for the Bernstein, but they will then discover the Bartok, which is almost unknown,” said Marielle in a phone interview last week from Boston. She had just returned from a duo-recital with Katia at Boston’s Symphony Hall. “I don’t think most piano duos take enough risks. The Bartok sonata we played tonight was last played in Boston’s Symphony Hall 20 years ago,” she said, with both a tinge of surprise and a hint of censure in her voice.

When questioned about their appearances on television shows such as the Merv Griffin Show and Johnny Carsons’ Tonight Show, Marielle asked rhetorically, “Why can’t (musicians) be like anyone else and go on television and chat? Why should we remain in our ivory tower? We musicians must not be too serious, or we will be left without any sense of humor.” Then there is the missionary aspect of a late night guest spot. “If I can light a little flame for classical music in the heart of just one person--one child, one older person--it is worth it.”

At age 35, Marielle and Katia, two years her senior, have attained an enviable niche in their field. It comes as no surprise that their musical pedigree is impeccable. They first studied piano with their mother, Ada Labeque, who had studied piano under Marguerite Long, Claude Debussy’s pupil and the virtuosa for whom Maurice Ravel wrote his G Major Piano Concerto. The sisters commenced their duo career after finishing the Paris conservatory, and within two years were selected to record Olivier Messiaen’s “Visions de l’Amen” under the supervision of the noted French composer.

Without compromising their convictions about playing serious contemporary music, they went on to make best-selling recordings of Gershwin and an album of Scott Joplin piano rags called “Gladrags.” Their 1981 Gershwin album so impressed Ira Gershwin, that he provided the Labeque sisters with some of his brother’s previously unknown works for two pianos, including the composer’s own two-piano version of “An American in Paris.”

They made their American debut eight years ago with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the baton of Luciano Berio, one-time enfant terrible of the Italian avant garde. Reviewing their performance of Berio’s 1973 Concerto for Two Pianos, Los Angeles Times music critic Martin Bernheimer said the two French pianists played like “inspired demons.”

“By the way, we’re still fighting to find a record company that will record the Berio concerto we played in Los Angeles,” said Marielle. They are also looking forward to another Berio collaboration, a new work for orchestra, two pianos and two singers, which Berio is completing on commission for the Philadelphia Orchestra.

She was displeased with the characterization of the duo-piano repertory as narrow. “It takes a lot of research and a lot of imagination to play the duo repertory, but that’s more challenging than playing the same Chopin nocturne and Beethoven sonata that everyone else plays,” Marielle said. “When I hear the typical solo piano recital, I find few new ideas, and the repertory is always the same. I think the solo pianist is indolent. The solo repertory is rich, but the performers play the same concertos, the same sonatas.”

The Labeque sisters, assisted by percussionists Jean-Pierre Drouet and Sylvio Gualda, are being presented by the La Jolla Chamber Music Society in this final concert of its Sherwood Hall series.