Opposites attract at Chandler Pavilion

Grant Gershon came up with a honey of an idea at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Saturday night -- pairing both sets of Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes with Stravinsky’s “Les Noces” (The Wedding).

It’s a terrific attraction of opposites, with Brahms setting it up with lovable, swaying, Vienna-drenched musings on love and Stravinsky ramming it home with a clattering, clamorous, Dionysian fun fest of a Russian wedding.

The styles may be different but the means are similar, using massed voices, vocal soloists, multiple pianos -- and, above all, strong, continuous, infectious rhythm.

Not for the first or last time, Stravinsky created a genre of his own in “Les Noces” -- and its reverberations could be felt decades later in Bartok’s piano/percussion works, Orff’s “Carmina Burana” and Leonard Bernstein’s Mass.

Yet despite its influence and crowd-pleasing sonic racket, we don’t hear “Les Noces” played very often, due to the weird performance requirements (four pianos, lots of percussion, chorus and vocal soloists), its metrical difficulties and a shortage of suitable companion pieces.

So this was an event, and Gershon tried to give it some youthful vitality, supported by a quartet of expert new-music pianists -- Gloria Cheng, Bryan Pezzone, Vicki Ray, Mark Robson -- and four impassioned soloists -- soprano Juliana Gondek, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Roderer (whose Russian was the most idiomatic of the four), tenor Jonathan Mack and bass Louis Lebherz.

Adopting a deliberate pace at first, Gershon seemed a bit cautious in some passages; but more often than not, he was able to let it rip.

The Brahms is no less dependent upon rhythm in its own way -- and here, the duo of pianists in the second set (Cheng and Robson) found the right groove, whereas the duo in the first set (Pezzone and Ray) seemed to wander and lose touch.

Yet the Los Angeles Master Chorale sang cohesively on Brahms and raised the roof on Stravinsky.