Yefim Bronfman

Yefim Bronfman's recital at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Wednesday night was bookended by monumental Brahms and Prokofiev sonatas that the popular Uzbek pianist with a massive technique made much of. The occasion will gladly be remembered as the example of a prodigious performer in action, increasingly willing to plumb music's soul. There were also two little pieces in the middle. One was Schumann's "Arabeske," which flew by as if on gossamer wings, Bronfman's brawny fingers seeming somehow to barely brush the keys, as though there were nothing to it. The other six-minute piece was Esa-Pekka Salonen's "Sisar," written for Bronfman and receiving its world premiere.

Yefim Bronfman's recital at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Wednesday night was bookended by monumental Brahms and Prokofiev sonatas that the popular Uzbek pianist with a massive technique made much of. The occasion will gladly be remembered as the example of a prodigious performer in action, increasingly willing to plumb music's soul. There were also two little pieces in the middle. One was Schumann's "Arabeske," which flew by as if on gossamer wings, Bronfman's brawny fingers seeming somehow to barely brush the keys, as though there were nothing to it. The other six-minute piece was Esa-Pekka Salonen's "Sisar," written for Bronfman and receiving its world premiere.

Few musicians have forged a closer professional and personal collaboration than that of conductor-composer Esa-Pekka Salonen and pianist Yefim Bronfman. Their regular appearances together performing concertos from the standard repertory have captivated audiences for some 20 years, first during Salonen's 17-season tenure as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and more recently while he's been principal conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. But that relationship broadened six years ago, when Bronfman gave the premiere of Salonen's Piano Concerto, written for the soloist and commissioned by the New York Philharmonic.

Few musicians have forged a closer professional and personal collaboration than that of conductor-composer Esa-Pekka Salonen and pianist Yefim Bronfman. Their regular appearances together performing concertos from the standard repertory have captivated audiences for some 20 years, first during Salonen's 17-season tenure as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and more recently while he's been principal conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. But that relationship broadened six years ago, when Bronfman gave the premiere of Salonen's Piano Concerto, written for the soloist and commissioned by the New York Philharmonic.

They seem an unlikely duo: Isaac Stern, the beloved, violin-playing, pear-shaped mensch who saved Carnegie Hall, and Yefim Bronfman, the tall, self-effacing, Clark Kent-style virtuoso pianist who plays it cool. When Bronfman was born in 1958, Stern was already world-famous, justly celebrated, and nearly 38 years old. An odd coupling. Yet, the American fiddler and the Israeli pianist share at least one common tie: they were both born in the Soviet Union.

You can, the adage says, take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy. That appears to hold true even if the country in question is the recently dismantled U.S.S.R. and the boy happens to be emigre pianist Yefim Bronfman.

NEW YORK -- When pianist Yefim Bronfman steps onto the Walt Disney Concert Hall stage Thursday night for the first of four consecutive concerts with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the moment will be weighted with musical history. And that's saying something for a man who was a protege of Isaac Stern, studied with Rudolf Serkin and Leon Fleisher, roomed with Yo-Yo Ma and made his first major orchestral appearances in the U.S. under the baton of Leonard Bernstein.

Some glimpses of the conductor from his friends and colleagues who were asked to share a key memory. The reminiscences were mostly written, at the invitation of The Times. Several were shared in interviews with music critic Mark Swed and staff writer Mike Boehm. MARK KASHPER Philharmonic violinist One of Esa-Pekka's favorite Finnish jokes goes like this: Q. What's the difference between Finnish introvert and extrovert? A.

Jon Kimura Parker will replace an ailing Yefim Bronfman as the soloist in tonight's Los Angeles Philharmonic concert at the Hollywood Bowl. Parker will play the same work as originally scheduled: Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. The rest of the program, led by guest conductor Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, also will remain the same: Respighi's "Fountains of Rome" and "Pines of Rome." -- Chris Pasles

Some prodigiously talented, aspiring young players got some expert help Friday night when members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute performed three chamber works at Schoenberg Hall, UCLA. Three mentors supplemented the forces--artistic director and cellist Lynn Harrell, Emerson Quartet violinist Philip Setzer and pianist Yefim Bronfman.

Esa-Pekka Salonen's Piano Concerto received a brightly confident performance at the Hollywood Bowl on Tuesday night. The date marks the first day in the rest of the life of a major work. The concerto's first performance was early in 2007 by the New York Philharmonic. Salonen conducted, and Yefim Bronfman, for whom the concerto was written and to whom it is dedicated, was soloist. Salonen and Bronfman recorded the concerto in Los Angeles last year at Walt Disney Concert Hall, and the CD was released in the U.S. in April to coincide with Salonen's final concerts as Los Angeles Philharmonic music director.

Some glimpses of the conductor from his friends and colleagues who were asked to share a key memory. The reminiscences were mostly written, at the invitation of The Times. Several were shared in interviews with music critic Mark Swed and staff writer Mike Boehm. MARK KASHPER Philharmonic violinist One of Esa-Pekka's favorite Finnish jokes goes like this: Q. What's the difference between Finnish introvert and extrovert? A.

Manny and Fima are a couple of very well-liked guys who live in the same building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. They come from the same part of the world and from countries that begin with the letter U: Manny was born in Ukraine, Fima in what is now Uzbekistan. Manny's the mensch with a flair for practical jokes. Fima's known to be a character. Like a lot of Eastern European Jewish emigrants to New York, they like to eat, but they have been watching their weight and lately have lost some.

NEW YORK -- When pianist Yefim Bronfman steps onto the Walt Disney Concert Hall stage Thursday night for the first of four consecutive concerts with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the moment will be weighted with musical history. And that's saying something for a man who was a protege of Isaac Stern, studied with Rudolf Serkin and Leon Fleisher, roomed with Yo-Yo Ma and made his first major orchestral appearances in the U.S. under the baton of Leonard Bernstein.

On Feb. 1, 2007, the New York Philharmonic premiered Esa-Pekka Salonen's Piano Concerto, his most ambitious orchestral score. The Big Apple's skeptical concert-goers and critics, proudly sporting their late-model flashiness detectors, responded with surprising (and evidently surprised) enthusiasm. The composer conducted. The orchestra, a very great ensemble in music it has played a million times, was impressive, barely over its head. Yefim Bronfman, the herculean Russian pianist for whom the concerto was written, sweated bullets at the premiere and complained to any reporter who would listen about just how outrageously difficult the solo part was -- and how unfairly late the composer, a close friend, had been in delivering the finished score.

Russian conductor Yuri Temirkanov has a reputation as a paragon of Old World virtues. Partly, that's due to his courtly manner, vigorous work ethic and antipathy for self-promotion. But Temirkanov's strongest connection to tradition is musical, specifically his favoring warm feeling over cool precision in his interpretations of the standard repertory. "He's extremely emotional as a conductor," pianist Yefim Bronfman, a frequent collaborator, said the other day.

Rapprochement continued at Hollywood Bowl on Thursday evening. For the second time this week, the Los Angeles Philharmonic brought Soviet conductor Yuri Temirkanov together with an emigre pianist. On this occasion the soloist was Yefim Bronfman, with Brahms' First Piano Concerto providing an eminently congenial meeting ground. Bronfman proved honest and even noble in the heroic challenge.

A pianist justifiably acclaimed for bravura, strength, technical resourcefulness and excitement, Yefim Bronfman saved his flashy virtuosity for the end of his latest local appearance, a recital in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Thursday night. He let it all out in Mily Balakirev's preposterously difficult "Islamey," once notorious as the most difficult piece in the piano repertory.

Emanuel Ax and Yefim Bronfman gave a two-piano recital at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Wednesday, reminding us that the attraction of pianist for pianist can be nothing but trouble. First, there are those unwieldy monsters. The pianos, that is. They may have the right curves to nestle together, but the players sit nine feet apart, peering unsociably at each other like a couple at the opposite ends of a nine-foot dining table.

Jon Kimura Parker will replace an ailing Yefim Bronfman as the soloist in tonight's Los Angeles Philharmonic concert at the Hollywood Bowl. Parker will play the same work as originally scheduled: Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. The rest of the program, led by guest conductor Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, also will remain the same: Respighi's "Fountains of Rome" and "Pines of Rome." -- Chris Pasles