Kremerata Finds Vivid Links in Varied Program

The summer before last, Gidon Kremer brought his newly formed string orchestra of young players from the Baltic region to the Hollywood Bowl to play Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.” The performance was astounding in its freshness, in the way it brought nature so viscerally to life that the music seemed as physically three-dimensional as the environment. Kremerata Baltica then added the fourth dimension of time early this year when it released its Nonesuch recording of “Eight Seasons,” in which Vivaldi’s four seasons are intercut with the Astor Piazzolla’s “Four Seasons.” Back and forth we go with ease between 17th century Venice and 20th century Buenos Aires, between Baroque dance and Argentine tango, the globe’s hemispheres and history all made one.

Kremerata Baltica returned to Los Angeles Wednesday night to play the Vivaldi/Piazzolla “Eight Seasons” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and this time there was yet another dizzying dimension. The fifth dimension was the virtual world of film. The ensemble began the concert with “Psycho: A Narrative for String Orchestra,” a short suite--a psychodrama, so to speak--of the music Bernard Herrmann wrote for Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film.

The suite begins with the movie’s most famous musical effect, the slashing string glissandi that signaled the shower-scene murder. The program notes pointed out how early audiences for the movie commonly associated these screechy violins with the terrifying noise of thousands of birds. It is, to be sure, a sound that sticks in the ear.

And stick it did, remaining all through the “Eight Seasons” as well. Everywhere, it seemed, violins or violas were slashing through Vivaldi--as birds and barking dog in “Spring,” a cuckoo in “Summer,” the hunt in “Autumn,” the icy wind of “Winter.” The slashing sound is in Piazzolla too as raspy percussion accompaniment from the string instruments.

In “Psycho,” Herrmann plays with nature his own way. For instance, the ominous quality he gives to rain is not forgotten when we get to Vivaldi’s thunderstorms. Herrmann’s terror-inducing tremolos toy with our emotions, and that memory only enhances the heartbreak implied by Piazzolla’s.

Vivaldi’s nature poem in sound is, of course, meant to delight with its vivid sound effects, with its clever use of Baroque concerto form for narrative structure and with the stunning virtuosity of the solo violin part. Piazzolla, likewise, used convention in surprising ways, here to tell us his own story of seduction never quite fulfilled. Hitchcock delighted us with fright. Put these feelings all together, and we have a marvelously complex sense of the world.

And the marvel of Kremer and his spectacular ensemble is the thrilling way they do put this all together. They are utterly alive to the possibilities in the scores. They make every tiny detail stand out; they play with an overpowering sense of joy; they are exceptional virtuosos; and every single player, man and woman, is good-looking and stylish.

And they are deep. Also on the program was a late piece by the Russian composer Alfred Schnittke. The Concerto Grosso No. 6 for violin, piano and strings is somber music obsessed with the elemental effects of scales, crashing chords and tremolos. And, once more, the stark drama of the music reminds us that Schnittke learned much about creating emotional impact from these effects through his own years of writing film music. His psyche too seemed an echo of “Psycho,” especially when the performance was as powerful and haunting as this one was.

Kremer can play these days both like a violinist possessed, as he did in Schnittke, or like a virtuoso in a second youth, as he did in the Vivaldi. The compelling young pianist in the Schnittke was Naida Cole.

Filmic imagination even dominated two special encores. The first a wild arrangement of music by Isaac Dunayevsky for a 1941 Soviet film, “Circus.” The second was wilder still, Nino Rota’s theme for “8 1/2,” hilariously performed by the musicians standing and coming as close to dancing with each other as is possible while still playing.

Then to the parking garage. Beeeep, beeeep, beeeep went the cars, sounding like a chorus from “Psycho,” as they were unlocked by their remote controls. And all this in counterpoint to the screech of tires on the garage’s unnervingly slick surfaces. Gidon Kremer is a unique musician with an unlimited musical imagination; the music he makes doesn’t stop when he does.