From her single-name trademark, you might imagine that Midori is classical music’s answer to Cher. Or Bono. The Japanese-born but American-trained violin virtuosa exhibited star qualities at an early age, debuting with the New York Philharmonic at age 11 and astounding Leonard Bernstein and the Boston Symphony at the mature age of 14.

La Jolla Music Society

^{Courtesy photo}

Not every prodigy winds up with a glamorous career, but Midori has negotiated well every transition. Her Sunday (Dec. 5) recital at the Balboa Theatre with pianist Ozgur Aydin proved that at 39 she still commands a brilliant and refined technique, but more importantly, she displays a keen intellectual insight into the structural complexities and stylistic nuances of the music she chooses.

Her program was nothing short of a master class in what a recital should be: a well-balanced construct of the most demanding portions of the repertory. Patrons expecting the customary Fritz Kreisler bon-bons or the clever Heifitz arrangements were as ill-advised as attendees at a Luis Buñuel film festival wondering why there were no cartoons.

Midori’s fare: four daunting sonatas—Beethoven, Ravel, J. S. Bach and Saint-Saens—each refracting a different strand of the repertory. I found her account of Ravel’s “Sonata in G Major” for violin and piano transporting, espercially the deft interplay between the two instruments in the highest range that characterizes much of the opening movement. Yet when Ravel calls for suave melody in the lowest register, Midori produced a warm, melting, viola timbre.

Both Midori and Aydin, a superlative accompanist with ideally matched technical prowess, emphasized Ravel’s highly stylized approach to “Blues,” the slow middle movement that may have been inspired by American music, but, as the composer himself explained in a lecture at Yale University in 1928, is nevertheless completely his own. The fastidious Ravel could never loosen his perfectly knotted tie sufficiently to relax into the meter-stretching cadences of the blues, and these performers clearly marked the stylistic distance between Paris and New Orleans.

What can be said about Midori’s sumptuous and immaculately shaped interpretation of Bach’s “Sonata No. 3 in E Major,” BWV 1016? Her seamless legato is quite uninformed by current canons of informed historical performance practice—she made the opening Adagio a single breathless melisma—but her sheer beauty of tone and precision of line creates its own musical ethos. She had the concert grand’s lid closed to the short stick, and Aydin crafted a whispered (but stunningly precise!) accompaniment that sounded like it was coming from backstage.

Fortunately, the Bach catalogue is vast and rich enough to sustain a multitude of approaches. I would love to sit in and just listen to a conversation between Midori and the renowned British Baroque violinist Monica Huggett!

There was nothing controversial about Midori’s “Violin Sonata in A Minor,” Op. 23 by Beethoven. This infrequetly programmed sonata shows the composer in a particularly quirky mood, and Midori found ways to underscore his musical pranks without reducing it to farce. This was the one piece in which Midori allowed a less than alluring timbre to surface, but all in the cause of playful contrasts indicated in the score.

Midori saved her most extroverted playing for the finale, Camille Saint-Saens “Violin Sonata No. 1 in D Minor,” Op. 75, a stormy tour de force with lavish opportunities to display the gamut of emotional expression and technical proficiency. Neither performer held back, yet no canons of taste or acumen were threatened. For those who find Saint-Saens too over-the-top, e.g. his “Organ Symphony,” or too cute as in “The Carnival of the Animals,” this elegantly proportioned and structurally substantial sonata is the sure antidote, especially played with the flare and conviction of this duo.

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