Dual Recital of Virtuoso Imperative

Which came first, the musical idea or the technique to express it? That was a conundrum to consider in happy awe at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as two solo composer-performers--Stefano Scodanibbio and Gregg Bendian--explored the creative implications of the virtuoso imperative for the second of this season’s Monday Evening Concerts.

For “Voyage That Never Ends,” Scodanibbio seems to have extended three of his earlier pieces as movements of a composite epic, developing ideas in incremental variations over long durations. The Italian bassist began with music reduced to pure pulse, making tone and timbre simply elements of rhythmic definition. The other two large sections evoked Indian music, Scodanibbio’s dazzling two-handed pizzicato sounding much like a scherzo for tabla drums and his meditative finale, wisps of modal melody over buzzing drone, suggested the unmetered alap portion of an instrumental raga.

Bendian, on the other hand, offered nine tight studies for pitched percussion, which in his hands includes such unlikely instruments as the snare drum and bongos. The New York-based musician is a master of astonishingly quick and fluid mallet work and knows how to expand simple material naturally to its fullest, most dramatic dimensions. This was perhaps most effectively apparent in the pieces for vibraphone and glockenspiel, “Resultant” and “Polyanthus,” although all his pieces were models of economic expression and transcendental technique.

The duo-recital ended with a sly, articulate joint improvisation, Bendian drawing fey squeals from a bowed glockenspiel while Scodanibbio tapped percussively over his bass, laid flat on the floor.