Paratore Brothers Impress With Their United Refinement on Piano

The interpretations did not make a profound impact Saturday night in Marsee Auditorium. Nevertheless, duo pianists Anthony and Joseph Paratore impressed in their concert at El Camino College with their refined sound quality and a multifaceted palette of pastel hues.

In works by Chopin and Rachmaninoff, as well as in more popular crowd-pleasers, the pair offered considerate, subdued readings. Sometimes, as in the Barcarolle from Rachmaninoff’s Suite No. 1, Opus 5, blandness resulted from an emphasis on pretty playing. At their best, however--as in the second movement of the same work--the brothers bathed their audience in a wash of poignantly couched harmonies.

They indulged in plenty of showmanship--requesting varied effects from the lighting crew, prefacing pieces with humorous comments, pretending to engage in brotherly competition. But the showmanship did not intrude on the playing, and they adhered to unaffected, synchronic unanimity throughout the evening, whether approaching Milhaud’s “Scaramouche” with light-touched simplicity or hypnotizing with hushed, sensuous urgency during Ravel’s “Bolero.”

Arrangements included their own stylish two-piano transcription of “Rhapsody in Blue” by Gershwin and a witty medley of Bernstein’s music from “Candide” and “West Side Story,” by David Spear. In an encore, on one piano, they shared a gentle sense of humor through their hand-over-hand-over-hand version of the Finale from Saint-Saens’ “Carnival of the Animals.”