MUSIC REVIEW : Bronfman-Lin-Harrell Trio at Ford

No aficionado would dare deny the validity of the several-playing-as-one ideal which is at the heart of chamber music performance. In a less guarded moment, the same listener might, however, confess to a yearning for the thrill of experiencing a collection of supervirtuosi strutting their individual stuff on behalf of the intimate muse--repertory permitting, of course.

The star trio--pianist Yefim Bronfman, violinist Cho-Liang Lin and cellist Lynn Harrell--assembled on Monday at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, looking, in the billowing bag in which much of it was wrapped (“for sound,” a Los Angeles Philharmonic official cryptically explained) rather as it were being fumigated, gave us a heaping platterful of each style.

Schubert’s Trio in B-flat, generally referred to as “feminine”--to distinguish it from the “masculine” work in E-flat--gently sang and beguiled its way in a performance (generous with repeats) uncommonly light and sweet in tone.

The softer dynamics were emphasized throughout, risking sonic evaporation in the night air. But the controlled, highly nuanced interpretation held the attention throughout. If this was indeed an ad hoc ensemble, then the virtues of long experience playing together have been vastly overrated.

Tchaikovsky’s usually interminable A-minor Trio constituted the second half of the program. It was clear from the brisk pacing of the opening measures that this would be no melancholy “homage” but luscious, brawling musical theater.

Bronfman, the soul of discretion in Schubert, crooned and thundered his way through Tchaikovsky’s passionate convolutions with infectious conviction; Lin’s violin wept with ecstatic abandon, while Harrell, never more elegant in tone or demeanor, assumed the responsibility of keeping the proceedings from becoming too much an arena for individual display, harnessing tempos and dynamics and keeping expressivity from spilling over into self-parodying melodrama.