Gluzman and Yoffe’s Risks Rewarded by Dazzling Payoff

Vadim Gluzman came to the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts on Monday with all the credentials of the contemporary virtuoso. The Ukrainian Israeli violinist also brought a multifaceted, highly communicative personality, and an equally deft and adventuresome duo partner in his wife, pianist Angela Yoffe.

Poulenc’s Sonata, begun in Nazi-occupied Paris, is a mordant cabaret deconstruction, post-modern before its time. The precision of Gluzman and Yoffe’s teamwork made it crackle with palpable tension, its furies relieved only by Gluzman’s floating cantilena in the bittersweet Intermezzo.

This is potent stuff, and risky too, in its exacting ensemble detail. Even more daring, in terms of coordinating flamboyant violinistics with piano punctuation, was Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s amazing “Figaro,” which sounds as though it were written for a Tex Avery cartoon. This sendup of Rossini may be the hardest and the funniest of opera pastiches, played here with dazzling wit and security.

Gluzman and Yoffe opened with Brahms’ G-major Sonata, Opus 78, in a lyrical and introspective performance dedicated to the late Wayne Shilkret, executive director of the Cerritos Center. They followed it with a galvanic account of the Scherzo Brahms contributed to a birthday sonata for the violinist Joseph Joachim.

Dvorak’s Four Romantic Pieces, in warm, expressive performances, completed the agenda. In encore Gluzman and Yoffe offered two of Bartok’s Romanian Dances and an off-off-Broadway meditation on themes from “Fiddler on the Roof.”

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* Vadim Gluzman and Angela Yoffe present a similar program Sunday 2 p.m., Raitt Recital Hall, Pepperdine University, 24255 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, $20, (310) 506-4522.