MUSIC REVIEW : Kremer and Argerich in Recital at Music Center

For those who fear that major music-making has become a profession of faceless clones, there is hope. Violinist Gidon Kremer and pianist Martha Argerich gave a volatile, eccentric recital of serious music, sponsored by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and thrilled a large Dorothy Chandler Pavilion crowd in the process Sunday evening.

There were no bonbons for Kremer and Argerich, no innocuous warm-ups or slate of pops transcriptions announced from the stage. No padding or pandering, just three important sonatas.

The sole hum-along concession was the ubiquitous Sonata in A by Cesar Franck. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, we are told, and at least one heart would like to give it a try in the case of Franck’s croonful Sonata.

Kremer and Argerich went far toward restoring life and luster to it, however. They began in soft, hesitant intimacy and allowed the sentiment to blossom naturally. The second-movement fury was forced at first--almost inarticulate on Argerich’s part--but the balance between poise and passion was soon restored.

The balance between violin and piano was never threatened, either, thanks to the composer’s judicious scoring. In sonatas by Schumann and Bartok, however, Kremer’s efforts became a largely visual effect whenever the piano part grew agitated.

Raising the piano lid was the duo’s only misjudgment, however. Kremer and Argerich, two highly idiosyncratic talents, shared a well-practiced, deeply committed, clearly rethought approach to their material that lacked nothing in tight, attentive ensemble.

They developed the often almost tangential interplay in Bartok’s Sonata in C-sharp minor in stern, Expressionistic anxiety and chilly anger. When the repressive haze inevitably lifted in the finale, the heat was almost physical as Kremer and Argerich attacked with barbaric abandon.

Nothing was held back in Schumann’s A-minor Sonata, either. In the finale, Kremer’s combination of feathery, surface bowing and slashing accents created some exaggerated moments. Kremer circled his music stand in complex little dances that affected sound as much as sight, but excepting the now-you-hear-it, now-you-don’t effects as he turned about, his production was unflappably secure.

Persistent applause brought the pair back for two encores: a high-speed, peppery dash through the first movement of Beethoven’s Sonata in A, Opus 12, No. 2, and a soft, sugary, endlessly affectionate caressing of Kreisler’s “Liebesleid.”