Music Reviews : Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax in Recital at Pavilion

You don’t have to be a nonagenarian to remember when a concert of music for cello and piano would not have drawn a corporal’s guard.

Times have changed to the extent that when Emanuel Ax, the pianist, and Yo-Yo Ma, the cellist, paired for a concert Wednesday night there were scarcely any empty seats in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

This happy state of affairs was not a fluke, but a well-earned tribute, each performer long since having acquired a faithful following, and a combined attraction became irresistible.

It was considerably more than a couple of popular soloists teaming up again. Ax and Ma are much too conscientious musicians to settle for the easy way. The evidence is that their ensemble has been forged through long experience and unremitting labor.

In the best ensemble tradition, they listen to each other, they watch each other, and minds and hearts become as closely attuned as bow and fingers.

Another advantage may be a shared joyful attitude toward their work. Popular notion may have it that all musicians love their work--would it were so--but such generalizations can be risky. Ax and Ma obviously are totally involved, their concentration is complete, their performance is polished virtually to an ultimate degree.

They found entertainment and amusement in Stravinsky’s “Suite Italienne.” They cherished the quiet lyricism of Brahms’ Sonata in E minor, Opus 38, and they discovered ample reward in Chopin’s often maligned Sonata in G minor.

Audience approval was tempestuous and finally produced an encore in the third movement of Rachmaninoff’s Sonata in G minor. A short “Grave” by Lutoslawski, made no particular difference one way or the other.