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True Celebrity Earns Just Reward in Quartet Recital

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SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Celebrity is a question of degree. For many of the LosAngeles Philharmonic’s so-called Celebrity Recitals, it barely suffices to fill half of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. But put up a quartet of bona fide musical stars, as the Philharmonic did Tuesday evening, and the audience will spill out of the hall and into special stage seating.

Violinist Isaac Stern, violist Jaime Laredo, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Emanuel Ax are certainly known quantities, individually and collectively. In their long-standing collaboration, for example, they have recorded all the works on their Tuesday program: the quartets in E-flat by Mozart and Schumann and Brahms’ C-minor quartet.

It was a program that made for a long and substantial evening spent in closely related keys. But this is an ensemble of big spirits, well met and meshed here, and their fierce and exuberant joy in the playing was a consistent and enlivening presence.

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In all of chamber music there may be no better summation of the longing side of Romanticism than the slow movements--which share many features--of the Schumann and Brahms quartets. And it would be hard to find fuller expression of their swooning ecstasies than in Ma’s radiantly lyrical, sublimely inflected solos at the beginning of both movements. Intensely personal yet warmly reaching out, Ma’s efforts inspired equally extravagant eloquence from his colleagues.

But for all the passionate detail, these were not performances that lived in the moment alone. There was a clear-sighted sweep to these well-inhabited readings, a palpable sense of points made and objectives gained.

Texture and sound generally served the composers’ aims, although this is a group that in its current state can be thin and pale on top. Most at a loss here was Mozart, who came across as something like Brahms Lite, with clarity and grace sometimes struggling in a big vibrato world.

At the end, a standing ovation, of course. But not the usual L.A. model: as much rolling for the door as rising in tribute. Even after it was clear that no encore would be forthcoming, the large crowd was content to stand and cheer. Celebrity indeed, and celebrity earned.

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