Double Exposure in Impressive Program

Following an appearance on the Sundays at Four series at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the violin-piano duo Double Exposure, proving true to its name and none the worse for wear, tore into a demanding program that night in Thorne Hall at Occidental College.

The London-based husband-and-wife team--violinist Thomas Bowes and pianist-composer Eleanor Alberga--was remarkable in several ways: in its musical perception and concentration, in its unflagging energy, in its tight ensemble. Individually, too, these were polished players. All of it was put in the service of an adventurous agenda.

British composer Adam Gorb’s 1996 Sonata for Violin and Piano, commissioned by Double Exposure, served as centerpiece for the first half. A communicative, tonal, 18-minute work, direct in its form, Gorb’s Sonata doesn’t waste a note. An unstated drama impels it forward, couched in piquantly scored terms, including microtones. Its Shostakovichian breadth seems natural and earned.

Another strong new piece, Alberga’s own 1996 “No-Man’s-Land Lullabye,” anchored the second half. In 11 eventful minutes, glassy, tolling chords and soulful melody give way to driving fury, then to a heaven-climbing lullaby--Brahms’ lullaby, cut up and reworked but gradually taking ever more recognizable shape.

In everything he played, Bowes revealed an exacting and deeply felt musicianship. His soulful and meaty readings of four Hungarian Dances by Brahms were an emotional highlight, not throwaways.

Alberga supported with taste, probity and sensitivity. Together they covered the entire terrain of Bartok’s vast Second Sonata, its netherworld rhapsodies, muted zephyrs and gigantic sonorities. Schubert’s Rondo, D. 895, and bonbons by Kupkovic and Elgar rounded out the evening. A too small audience sat in rapt attention.