MUSIC REVIEW : Ma, Ax Provide Profound Performance

The Civic Theatre’s cavernous proportions can daunt even the most skilled chamber musicians. Sunday night, however, the 3,000-seat hall seemed barely large enough to contain pianist Emanuel Ax and cellist Yo-Yo Ma, especially in their expansive performance of Rachmaninoff’s G Minor Sonata for Piano and Cello.

In their concert for the La Jolla Chamber Music Society, the two musicians displayed the rich rewards of their longstanding musical collaboration. Their partnership far exceeded the decorum of thoughtful integration and comradely give and take: Ax and Ma fused their probing interpretations with uncommon unanimity and depth. Even in a busy musical season, performances this profound are rare.

Besides the Rachmaninoff, the duo chose but two other works, Stravinsky’s “Suite Italienne” and Prokofiev’s C Major Cello Sonata, Op. 119. This demanding fare gave little comfort to the audience, which would have been happier with French bonbons and bathetic elegies.

The uncompromising Ma refused to begin any movement without complete silence from the audience. With their consummate artistry--and a rather diffident stripe of patience--the duo refashioned the audience’s expectations to their own agenda. By the concert’s finale, the sold-out house was ecstatic.

Ma attacked the Stravinsky Suite with elegant vigor, and Ax’s dry, finely pointed accompaniment gave this neoclassical gem an aptly industrial finish. The Suite, plundered by the composer from his ballet score “Pulcinella,” elicited an edgy timbre from Ma, and in the energetic “Tarantella” movement, his tone was reduced to an animated buzz.

Fortunately, Prokofiev’s Sonata called forth richer sonorities, which Ma supplied in abundance. His shapely phrasing and quicksilver transitions were a constant reminder of the C Major work’s bittersweet ambiguities. If Ma’s reverent formality had a tendency to distance his listeners, his underlying passion was unmistakable.

The duo’s transcendent interpretation of Rachmaninoff’s giant rhapsody was orchestral in its sweep, yet revealingly intimate in the communion between cellist and pianist. The lyrical third movement could not have been more ethereal. Ax never exploited the piano’s commanding role in the Sonata, yet his rock-solid, authoritative technique made his contribution more satisfying than any display of virtuoso fireworks.