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The concert Gidon Kremer gave Wednesday night at Benaroya Hall was not business as usual on the concert platform.
But that comes as no surprise because the Latvian violinist has been venturing from the routine for most of his distinguished career, in terms of what he plays and with whom. He is unpredictable, appearing in duo concerts with extraordinary artists like Martha Argerich and Kristian Zimerman, playing the standard repertory with major orchestras and major conductors, founding a chamber music festival in Austria, running one in Switzerland or touring with talented young musicians from the three Baltic countries, called appropriately enough Kremerata Baltica.
For this concert he was joined by two young colleagues: pianist Andrius Zlabys, from Lithuania, who graduated from the Curtis Institute and is now a student at Yale, and percussionist Andrei Pushkarev, born in Kiev. What was predictable, given the association with Kremer, was their talent -- their technical resources and musical intelligence.
The program was all over the map: from Bach chorales, transcribed for solo piano, to tangos by Astor Piazzolla arranged by the Russian composer Sofia Gubaldulina. At turns, the music was moody, austere, inviting, disquieting, probing, evocative but never gushing or sentimental. Those are words Kremer has stricken from his vocabulary.
Although the violinist was the star attraction, he gave plenty of time and space to the lesser-known musicians. Each had chance at the solo spotlight, and each made an impression on the house. Zlabys is a gifted pianist with wide-ranging interests, and Pushkarev proved what a musician of substantial ability can do with the vibraphone.
Kremer's solo offering was Bartok's Sonata for unaccompanied violin, written in the penultimuate year of his life, between two better-known works, the "Concerto for Orchestra" and Third Piano Concerto. This is not the easiest of music to elucidate. However, Kremer's reading was compelling, illuminating the composer's knotty score.
Everything on the program was of interest, some because the works were familiar and some because they were in stimulating and often provocative arrangements like the Bach and Piazzolla.
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