MUSIC REVIEW : Harrell and Ashkenazy at Wiltern

The Wiltern Theatre has been home to many classical music events this season. Tuesday evening, cellist Lynn Harrell and pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy tried a program of big, serious sonatas in the old Deco movie palace-cum-neo-Baroque theater.

In the now notoriously quirky Wiltern acoustic, what you see isn’t always what you get. Visually, Harrell and Ashkenazy gave intense, sober performances, then leapt to their feet in beaming triumph in their bows.

The supporting aural evidence, however, was mixed. A curious sonic lethargy often sapped slow movements of drama, and in quicker sections Harrell’s admirably light and even spiccato became oddly echoing, scratchy percussion.

The large audience for this Los Angeles Philharmonic-sponsored recital didn’t help matters. Rustling, coughing and seat-squeaking was a constant, occasionally overwhelming, accompaniment to the music at hand. The performers seemed oblivious to the competition, launching even the softest beginnings while their audience was at its most audibly unsettled.

Harrell and Ashkenazy worked together fluently on this program, listing Shostakovich’s Sonata, Beethoven’s fifth and final cello Sonata, Opus 102, No. 2, and Brahms’ Sonata in F, Opus 99. They shared well-planned and patterned approaches, articulated common phrases uniformly and emphasized ensemble over flash.

This is the cello/piano repertory at its most monumental, in substance as much as sound and size. Unless their efforts were seriously sabotaged by the acoustics, however, the duo took a light and understated view of their material. The Shostakovich in particular proved uncommonly airy, its sardonic Angst mellowed into reverie and merely grumpy humor.

Playing that sounded uncommitted and even trivial in Shostakovich translated into classically nimble, sincerely felt Beethoven.

After intermission, Harrell produced a darker, richer sound for Brahms than he had previously offered, adding welcome sonic luster.

The bright spirits that Harrell and Ashkenazy displayed in their bows, were fully manifest in the lone encore, the second movement of Prokofiev’s Sonata in C.