MUSIC REVIEWS : Triumph for Israeli Violinist Carmit Zori

With her infant daughter waiting patiently in the wings, Israeli violinist Carmit Zori played Bach, Brahms and Respighi at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Wednesday night and scored a brilliant triumph with her intellectually rigorous yet vibrant musical personality.

Although the 34-year-old Naumburg Foundation Competition winner suffered occasional intonation problems, she brought such distinction to her unusually serious program that she clearly deserves regular return engagements.

The recital’s highlight was Ottorino Respighi’s 25-minute B-minor sonata, composed in 1917 and once favored by the great Jascha Heifetz, but now infrequently heard in the concert hall.

From its profound opening theme, pregnant with the melodic and decorative intricacies that would occupy much of the first movement’s subsequent development, to the last movement’s extraordinary concluding rainbow, this must have been a stunning discovery for many of the listeners.

Presented under the auspices of the Pro Musicis support program, and accompanied by Charles Abramovich as eloquently as the Bing Theater’s unresponsive piano would allow, Zori began with the stern graces of Bach’s C-minor Sonata BWV 1017 and continued with the sunnier charms of Brahms’ G Major Sonata Opus 78, immediately establishing in each a convincing pulse that made all subsequent musical decisions seem perfectly natural.

The concert was the final one for the museum’s music programs coordinator Cheryl Tiano who, after five years, is leaving to represent film composers. Characteristically, as the chimes signaled the end of intermission, she ran off laughing: “I’ve got to get the musicians ready --and warm up the baby’s milk.”