Music Reviews : Violinist Midori Returns to Royce Hall

In a career now going back 10 years, the prodigious Japanese-born violinist Midori--she long ago left behind her given, three-word name--seems to have made all the right decisions: about teachers, schools, public appearances, orchestral engagements, repertory and exposure.

Most important, she has chosen wisely in her ideals.

As demonstrated again, Friday night in Royce Hall at UCLA, Midori aspires to the highest standards of violinism and musicianship. And, because she is extravagantly gifted and uniquely accomplished, she has become, at age 20, a young master of her instrument.

As a result, attending this recital--Midori’s first local recital since the one of her debut in the same hall, three years ago this month--provided all the joys, thrills and emotional resonances one can expect in observing a master of any age going about his work.

Is Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” a masterpiece, not just a vehicle for display? Midori and her first-rank pianistic partner, Robert McDonald, restored that truth.

Is Elgar’s overwrought but charming E-minor Sonata the perfect showcase for the many tone-colors and wide dynamic range Midori carries around in her musical palette? For sure. Are elegant-fiddling bonbons by Debussy, Sarasate and Kreisler worth revisiting, for reasons of musical satisfactions as well as lighthearted amusement? Absolutely.

Virtuosos have to prove their seriousness before they start the acrobatics; they usually do so at the outset of a program.

Here, before a sold-out house in the handsome UCLA facility, Midori brought a solid and faceted sense of style to both Mozart’s brief but dramatic E-minor Sonata, K. 304, and to Beethoven’s “Kreutzer,” in which she achieved a splendid, full-out, deeply probed performance; McDonald proved throughout to be an effortlessly equal, and equally contributing, partner.

Elgar’s impassioned 1918 Sonata also brought out emotional facets that less thorough musicians might have missed; the piece can sound weightless--but not here. Nor did Midori and her resourceful pianist shortchange the considerable contents of the remaining showpieces on the program proper, Debussy’s “Girl With the Flaxen Hair” and Sarasate’s “Zigeunerweisen,” both given on-target style as well as enthusiasm.

For encores, there were three: Elgar’s “Salut d’Amour,” Sarasate’s Introduction and Tarantella and Fritz Kreisler’s “Syncopation.”