After hearing Emil Miland's cello at Old First Church last Friday it was hard to believe there was ever a time the cello was not considered the sexiest instrument in the world. Lest there be any doubt, Miland and his pianist partner Lois Brandwynne chose a program sonically to beguile, bother, and bewilder as well as challenge. And in nearly every piece they succeeded stunningly.

Not the easiest Beethoven to put across, his late-middle-period Sonata for Cello and Piano in D, op. 102, No. 2, was certainly more beguiling than bewildering. Beethoven was experimenting with new concepts of form here. It came off sounding like it was written yesterday.

Full of surprising twists and turns, the piece veered from the pungent and pugnacious to the mystical and magical. In Miland and Brandwynn's hands it sounded both carefully wrought and improvised, without a trace of posturing The slow movement sang with great warmth and conviction. The transition to the final fugue, where the piano and the cello jointly make up the fugue subject, was brought off masterfully.

After the exuberance of the Beethoven, Miland introduced the Élégie by Milhaud with a few words of dedication. He then played with such pathos and tenderness that I had to reassess Milhaud. He was not just the master of only the witty and wistfully humorous and grand but capable of much more than that. Brandwynne did more than accompany, she played an important part in the subtle yet deeply moving impression made by the work.

The evening actually began with an informal discussion of the two more recent works on the program, Elinor Armer's Recollections and Andrew Imbrie's Encore, which was receiving its premiere. Both composers were present. In conversation with Robert Commanday, the "facilitator," and the performers, they set an informal tone.

Elinor Armer's fiery and romantic Recollections is a piece made for Miland's gorgeous sound and the sweeping gestures his bow makes. I liked the sounds I was hearing but was puzzled by the form. Exactly after it concluded, a brazen motorist outside signaled that the piece was over, and in the right key. The audience laughed, and the mood was incongruously contradicted.

Andrew Imbrie's Encore is hardly the light closer that the title might suggest. I heard in it passionate declamation, full of extremely concentrated expression, with each instrument given clearly differentiated yet complementary musical ideas. Miland and Brandwynne, no matter how involved in their own parts, always gave the impression of hearing and responding to what the other was doing, as if in intense discussion or even argument.

Imbrie's music also has its beguiling side. At the end of the piece, living up to the title, the cello part quietly asks, "Would you like to try that again?" The audience seemed to agree and got the encore it deserved. Still, after the second performance the shy question remained.

The Brahms F major Sonata followed intermission . It reaffirmed how temperamentally suited Miland and Brandwynne are to the romantic repertoire. There was all the "Sturm und Drang" I could wish, especially since the acoustics of Old First tend to make clarity difficult to maintain when textures thicken. I think they were right to play out. I'll take the "damn the torpedoes" approach, even if it means sacrificing some detail. The slow movement was so soulfully sung that Brandwynne and Miland made the sun shine again.

(Jerry Kuderna is a pianist who teaches at Diablo Valley College and is a host (with Sarah Cahill) of the Berkeley TV program, Stop, Look, and Listen.)

©2000 Jerry Kuderna, all rights reserved