Youthful Promise Audible Amid Difficulties

Under far from ideal conditions, two young artists played a perfectly respectable recital Sunday on the free music series presented at the Beverly Hills Public Library.

Violinist Ilya Gringolts and pianist Amanda von Goetz, both 18, kept their concentration and focus despite an overly heated, oddly V-shaped room, noise from the hall and the street outside, and distractions from the audience.

But it would be exaggerating to say that their music making was more than solid. Both musicians have plenty of time to develop, and the promise is there.

An Itzhak Perlman protege who made his Los Angeles debut at Hollywood Bowl in September, Gringolts showed, in two virtuosic Ysaye sonatas, Nos. 1 and 6, that playing notes isn’t the problem, but making structural sense of them is.

Henri Ernst’s solo violin variations on “The Last Rose of Summer,” a fool’s-gold showpiece that tortures a poor tune out of recognition, which followed, might better be reserved for encores or competitions, if played at all.

Von Goetz labored under the additional misfortune of having a tubby instrument at her disposal. She had the style of Chopin’s First Ballade under her fingers, but the performance was far from expansive and magical. Given the piano, it probably couldn’t have been.

The two were at their expressive best in Brahms’ Sonata No. 3, although there was still a lot of potential to realize there.

They ended the program with three Perlman chestnuts: Tartini’s Variations on a Theme of Corelli as arranged by Kreisler and Kreisler’s own “Liebeslied” and “Tambourin Chinois.”