Violinist Noe Inui is an excellent young violinist, and his performance during Sunday’s free “Gift to the Community” was another in a wonderful series of talent showcases that the Buffalo Chamber Music Society brings to town every year.

The first half of Inui’s program was devoted to pre-20th century violin sonatas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johannes Brahms, while the concluding portion of the concert dealt with scores by Igor Stravinsky and Karol Szymanowski dating from the period between the World Wars.

Mozart’s Violin Sonata in C major (K. 296) is a pleasant piece written when the composer was in his early 20s, but it is by no means the most impressive of his violin sonatas. The piano part provides most of the musical substance, while the violin’s role is more like architectural filigree — an airy attachment to a well-grounded structure. In this case, Noreen Cassidy-Polera, Inui’s superb accompanist, had the meatier part but held back just enough to fulfill her role as support for the featured soloist.

The beautiful Brahms G major violin sonata, op. 78, is one of the gems of the repertoire, and Inui handled himself well. It was also where the violinist showed his mettle when he slipped out of tune, stopped playing, apologized for the mistake, adjusted his strings and, starting back about a page before he initially halted, seemed to play with more authority.

There have been concerts in this city where established violinists have bulled through the music without making that critical adjustment, and Inui is to be congratulated for taking the time to address the problem and going on to conquer it. The audience loved the performance and rewarded him with well-considered applause.

Still, it wasn’t until the second half of the concert where things really took off. Cassidy-Polera’s role became even more important, and Inui built on the foundation supplied by the composers and his accompanist to dig into the scores with a presence and authority that had been missing previously in the recital.

Stravinsky’s four-movement Divertimento was an arrangement for violin and piano by the composer using material from his ballet “La baiser de la fee (The Fairy’s Kiss).” There was an excitingly savage bite to the writing and playing that was balanced out by passages of pensive balladry and dance rhythms hailing back to Stravinsky’s earlier “Histoire du soldat (Soldier’s Tale).”

The Nocturne and Tarantelle by Szymanowski grafted the more ecstatic elements of impressionism and expressionism onto a (European) Late Romantic base before tossing in hints of Persian mysticism. The Tarantelle in particular was like an exuberantly flaming dance for demons with rapid shifts in dynamics.

Concert Review

Buffalo Chamber Music Society

Violinist Noe Inui as part of the Gifts to the Community Concert Series. Sunday afternoon in the Mary Seaton Room of Kleinhans Music Hall.