PERFORMING ARTS

Fred Hersch

Whether improvising in the jazz mode or writing music for concert performance, pianist Fred Hersch creates expansive melodies that touch the heart yet retain a little beguiling mystery. With the help of pianist Blair McMillen and the Gramercy Trio, Hersch explored both sides of his output Friday night in the Library of Congress's Coolidge Auditorium, as part of the library's series presenting American composer-performers.

In the first half of the concert, which featured Hersch's notated music, lovely themes outstayed their welcome in "Lyric Piece for Trio" and "Tango Bittersweet" (played by Hersch and Gramercy violinist Sharan Leventhal), as Hersch didn't do much with the themes besides state and restate them. The piano miniatures "Saloon Songs" and "Little Midnight Nocturne," on the other hand, effectively concentrated his melodic invention. And in his "24 Variations on a Bach Chorale," Hersch contrasted lyrical stretches with pointillistic deconstructions, steely chords delineating the harmonic structure, and ecstatic runs up and down the keyboard, all of which McMillen rendered vividly and grippingly.

When Hersch sat at the piano after intermission to play jazz, he began with striking statements -- showers of pristine high notes in "Endless Stars," a melancholy dance in "Sarabande," the noble ballad of "At the Close of the Day" -- but took them on journeys no one could premeditate, pushing and pulling tempos, breaking down and rebuilding harmonies, even constructing new melodies from shattered materials, all the while making everything seem fresh and inevitable at once. (From its rarefied beginnings, "Endless Stars" eventually became a gentle rag.) His melodic sense shone here as well, but the spontaneity made for a compelling and fascinating counterweight.

-- Andrew Lindemann Malone

Tango Buenos Aires

Tangomania in alive and well in the Washington area -- local aficionados can find tango parties, tango clubs, even go on tango cruises. Little wonder then that the Music Center at Strathmore was packed to the rafters on Friday for Tango Buenos Aires, the hot Argentine export that has been riding the wave of tango popularity since the 1980s. And its recent program, "The Four Seasons," is dazzling: The tango is lean, clean and mean; the dancers boast skill and attitude in equal measure; and the musicians rock.

There is a tradition of big tango shows that stretches back at least a half-century, and it is on this tradition that Tango Buenos Aires draws. Whereas tango shows can sometimes go overboard with heavy story lines, glittering gowns and big sets, this program has kept the dance and music front and center. A hint of the story line was sufficient to move this full evening performance forward and keep it interesting.

The fast-paced program had 23 swift tango numbers and four musical interludes. Lidia Segni's choreography belies her ballet background, for there is elegance in her interpretation of tango. No matter how high the skirts are slit and how low they bend, the women are classy. No matter how cocky they are or how rakishly their hats are set, the men stay cool. It is this very ability to hold back just a little, in fact, that so characterizes this company. Like a lover who allows himself to be chased, the performers enhance their allure by remaining aloof. Dancing with the promise of abandonment, but never its fulfillment, is super-sexy.

The five-piece musical ensemble played with feeling and an ease born of superb technique, moving expertly through tango classics such as Astor Piazzolla's "Michelangelo '70" and Angel Villoldo's "El Choclo."