Uneven Concert Kicks Off Chamber Series

First, the good news: Los Angeles has a new chamber music series, the Rosalinde Gilbert Concerts, with the inaugural event held Wednesday night at the L.A. County Museum of Art’s Bing Theater, as will be future events. Six or more are planned a season.

Now, the bad news: A poor fellow with a malfunctioning beeper disrupted half of the concert, even after a plea from the performers. Puzzled but apparently unperturbed, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio carried on with its program of Brahms, Beethoven and Leon Kirchner.

The well-known ensemble--Joseph Kalichstein, piano; Jaime Laredo, violin; Sharon Robinson, cello--20 years old next year, showed its typical colors: unity of purpose and execution along with strong solo skills. These players milked emotional impulses and sought nuance at every turn, and so achieved much of what these pieces call for.

Still, few sparks flew. Certainly, the trio relied too heavily on a cliched expressive device, a surge ahead in tempo during crescendo, then a sudden drop in dynamic and pulling back on the reins. It seemed like rote music-making at times.

Kirchner’s 1993 Piano Trio No. 2, a work commissioned for this group, served as centerpiece. Cast in a single 17-minute movement, it’s a busy yet coherent work, constantly shifting in tempo and mood, rhythmically urgent one moment, evoking starry night the next. Harmonically, it inhabits a world somewhere between “Tristan” and Messiaen. It’s net effect is swirling, but the gestures are taut, not hazy. The ensemble had it under tight control.

The concert began with the Opus 101 Trio by Brahms, in a performance generally polished and engaging, though lacking distinction in all but its ghostly second movement. Beethoven’s “Archduke” Trio fared similarly, the ensemble concentrating on rapt nuance over breadth and momentum. Clearly a loving reading though, and, finally, no beeper.