Pianists Ax, Bronfman: Theater for the Ears

As stage spectacles go these days, two stout men in tuxedos operating pianos may seem hopelessly quaint. But for an imagination that lives in sound, the recital by Emanuel Ax and Yefim Bronfman, Sunday evening at the Music Center, was theater of the highest order.

There was the magical transformation of ritual gesture in Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Haydn, the highly charged dance of Rachmaninoff’s Suite No. 2 and the gripping drama of Brahms’ Sonata in F Minor--all of it developed through triangular character interaction of pianists and composers.

Ax and Bronfman are regular visitors here individually, always welcome but with a definite expectation of familiar gifts. In this duo context, however, touring in support of their new Rachmaninoff recording, they seem to feed off each other in unexpected ways. They have enough similarities to make the partnership solidly grounded, but they also strike sparks enough to ignite hot interplay of mind and sound.

Comparisons may be odious, but you could live off them for a month from the subtexts alone here. Besides the pianists themselves--Bronfman the edgier one, Ax the more lyrical--there was the comparison of the live Rachmaninoff suite with the still-fresh recorded version.

For definition of character and instrument, take the concert. For sonic detail--the fluid, overtone-rich murmur of the waltz opening, for example--take the concert again. The recording is fine, but Sunday Ax and Bronfman continually exposed new layers of interactive nuance.

Some of that was certainly due to the inherent differences between two pianos. But Bronfman and Ax traded places for the Brahms and their sound switched with them. The distinctions came from the artists more than from the instruments. For the Brahms pieces there were comparisons with each other, and with the better-known versions he created, orchestrating the Variations and turning the Sonata into the Piano Quintet.

The Variations are Cirque du Soleil for the ears; the Sonata is Shakespeare. Both seemed far more quirky and progressive in two-piano form than they usually do in their larger ensemble editions.

In encore Bronfman and Ax proved that one piano can accommodate both of them, dashing through the four-hand arrangement of Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance No. 8 with wit and power.