MUSIC REVIEW : Isaac Stern Back at the Music Center Pavilion

At 71, Isaac Stern is a genuine elder statesman. Master fiddler, paladin of Carnegie Hall, recording and sometimes film artist, much decorated consorter with politicians, influential musical mover, and beloved patron of young performers, Stern carries a heavy load of legend--easily enough to fill the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Wednesday.

He brought a characteristic, uncompromising and essentially lyric program, one that made scant concession to the acoustic and environmental realities of the Pavilion, particularly as packed with listeners who came despite their all-too-obvious colds and coughs.

Nor did the agenda offer much refuge for a violinist whose tone is not as deep or suave as it once was and whose errant bow now occasionally adds double-stops the composers never imagined.

Stern began bravely, hijacking attention away from the piano, where Mozart had placed it in his Sonata in D, K. 306, and making the brazen theft sound momentarily warranted. Stern’s lower strings went flat almost immediately, and he seemed as much bemused as amused by the quirky finale, but delivered a nonetheless sunny and singing performance.

He also delivered the Adagio of Beethoven’s “Spring” Sonata, Opus 24, with expressive power, though his eloquence was nearly buried under audience hacking. Elsewhere in the familiar piece, one could admire the clearly well-considered and deeply felt detailing, technically smudged though it often was.

Stern’s partner, pianist Robert McDonald, rose from faceless efficiency in the Mozart to incisive character and elegance in the Beethoven. And it was McDonald who subsequently powered Brahms’ D-minor Sonata, backing Stern’s inconsistent interpretive and technical heroics with articulate grace.

All the extracurricular noises visibly distracted Stern, who frequently tried to quiet the throng with admonitory waves of his bow. Inevitably, the disturbance proved greatest during Webern’s Four Pieces, Opus 7, where Stern delivered his most concentrated and penetrating playing.

Dvorak’s F-minor Romance, Opus 11, completed the printed program with leisurely sentiment. In encore, Stern and McDonald returned with a tender, soft-grained account of Schumann’s Intermezzo.