That's Khachatryan, not Khachaturian, though they are both Armenian and the former has been known to play the latter's violin concerto. Not tonight, though. This was a chamber concert at Oshman. The repertoire was more serious and heavy than at most of this series. Khachatryan, who is 27 and looks like a young Alan Arkin, played his Guarneri in Bach's D-minor Partita for solo violin, the one that ends with the enormous and challenging Chaconne. He took it slow and tentatively, playing the opening Allemande rather as if he were making it up as he went along. The expression was subdued but gripping.
After intermission, Sergey was joined by his pianist sister Lusine in Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata. This was livelier but not so enrapturing. Lusine energetically hammered a lot. Sergey expostulated in the presto sections. The Andante variation movement did not work so well: it lacked line and flow.
Their encore was said to be an Armenian folk song. I hope not; it was an overblown and windy arrangement of the kind that gives chamber music a bad name.
The big mystery of the evening was, what were Lusine and her page turner whispering about so intensely between movements? During one pause, the page turner left the stage for a few minutes, and we all just waited for her return. Lusine whispered to Sergey, but all the rest of us were left in the dark.
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