That the cellist Carter Brey and the pianist Christopher O'Riley enjoy playing chamber music together was much in evidence at their recital Saturday night at Howard Community College in the Candlelight Concert Society Series. Although each man enjoys a busy solo career, their interpretations displayed a good deal of thought and care.
The program got off to a less than ideal start with Stravinsky's "Suite Italienne," a transcription from "Pul- cinella" that the composer made for cellist Gregor Piatigorsky and that is more often heard in Samuel Dushkin's arrangement for violin and piano. There was nothing wrong with the Brey-O'Riley performance so much as there were things missing that one would have liked to hear. There simply wasn't enough refinement in the performance to bring the elegant surfaces of this brittle, polished music fully to life. O'Riley's vigorous playing and Brey's capacity for intense concentration (and tendency toward occasional lapses in intonation) made what should have been a jeux d'esprit seem overlong.
The same qualities, however, produced a remarkable performance of Shostakovich's great 1934 Cello Sonata. Here, cellist and pianist were able to bring the first movement to its fervid climax, play the scherzo with bite and eloquence, capture the tragic intensity of the slow movement and the high-spirited, cartoon-like exaggerations of the finale with panache. There were many beautiful moments -- not the least of which was the way O'Riley ended the first movement, descending ever lower into his instrument's range and producing ever darker colors. He is a remarkable pianist who somewhat resembles the actor Christopher Reeve and whose playing, which has no technical limitations, sometimes seems like that of Superman.