MUSIC REVIEW : Pressler and Friends at Gindi

The first season of “Music for Mischa” concerts (after the late cellist Mischa Schneider) ended on Tuesday with an event not intended for the faint of heart.

First, one had to contend with a spectacular amount of traffic at the usually peaceful University of Judaism on Mulholland Drive: While Schumann and Brahms were drawing a capacity audience to Gindi Auditorium, Henry Kissinger was drawing at least as great a number for his lecture elsewhere on the campus.

The university handled the potential crush expertly, with minibuses ferrying audiences--whether for Kissinger or for Kultur --from and to distant parking places. One wonders, however, whether the former secretary of state generated nearly as much passion as “Music for Mischa” did.

The star of the occasion was pianist Menahem Pressler, who inspired--at times almost incinerated--a string ensemble made up of violinists Joseph Genualdi and Miwako Watanabe, violist Brian Dembow and cellist Robert Martin.

Pressler’s playing was so propulsive and, simply, fast (with considerable note-scrambling) at the start of Brahms’ F-minor Piano Quintet that chaos beckoned. Happily, Genualdi was able to apply the brakes, and the performance, while remaining a high-tension affair, acquired shape.

The string playing proved admirably cohesive under the heady circumstances, especially so in consideration of the ensemble’s ad-hoc nature. One can only hope that a new, locally based string quartet was born on Tuesday.

At the conclusion of the Brahmsian conflagration, one could read exhilaration mixed with relief on the faces of the exhausted string players. Pressler, however, after an evening of his patented bobbing, weaving and mugging--and plenty of grandly dramatic pianism--greeted the cheering audience with the calm demeanor of a man who had emerged from a leisurely dinner.

In all, an experience this listener--and, presumably, the musicians themselves--would gladly repeat. But only after a lengthy period of rest and recuperation.

Oh, yes. The program opened with a strong, unremarkable reading of Schumann’s E-flat Piano Quartet (Pressler, Watanabe, Dembow, Martin).