MUSIC REVIEW : Ma, Kahane in Recital at Ambassador

For all his popular stature, Yo-Yo Ma regularly has made his recitals partnerships rather than star turns. This season he is touring with pianist Jeffrey Kahane, and Thursday they arrived at Ambassador Auditorium, with an encore performance scheduled for Friday at Royce Hall.

The generous, well-constructed program they brought placed an equal emphasis on the piano, while playing to Ma’s singing strength as a cellist. The effort provided wonders of nuance and idiosyncratic delights, within completely natural, unexaggerated contexts.

The novelty on the agenda, Kenneth Frazelle’s new Sonata in its local premiere, could quickly become a repertory staple. It is identifiably American--of the Ives-Copland-Schickele lineage--and cast in three originally shaped, tonally centered movements.

Ma and Kahane delivered it with clarity and affection. They stressed its lyrical sweetness without sentimentality, let the hushed mysteries of the central Adagio hover gracefully and projected barn-dance vigor in the rhythmically complex finale. The North Carolina-based composer was present to share the bows.

Rachmaninoff’s G-minor Sonata offered its characteristic Big Music opportunities for expressive display, which Ma and Kahane seized in fully integrated tandem. The surging finale came to a few too many counterproductive climaxes, but it had lean, concentrated power aplenty and interpretive unanimity.

In transcriptions of Falla’s “Siete Canciones,” Kahane moved into the accompanying background, allowing Ma leeway for his pliant phrasing. Ma pushed the peerless intensity of his sound into a buzz at peak moments, but the effect was that of the hoarse cry of cante flamenco.

Kahane had ample chance to work solo marvels in Beethoven’s Variations on “Ein Madchen oder Weibchen,” which he did with crystalline poise and evenly modulated sound. Cellist matched pianist in fleet articulation and focused brio.

In encore Ma went from the spiccato bravura of Kreisler’s “Tambourin Chinois” to the soulful song of Saint-Saens’ “Le Cygne,” with utmost verve and pathos.