Two Pittsburgh-raised musicians were reunited Sunday afternoon at the Pittsburgh Concert Society's annual alumni concert. Helping the society celebrate its 65th season, violinist Daniel Phillips and pianist Charles Abramovic presented a duo recital at Carnegie Mellon's Kresge Recital Hall. Their last appearance together here was during the society's 50th season.

Phillips' masterful interpretation and visionary performance of Bach's D-minor solo Partita showed that he is an artist with a unique voice and has the technical ability to say something with it. Especially in the monumental Chaconne, Phillips' strong sense of dramatic pacing brought clarity to this expansive musical landscape. Particularly vivid was the shift in tone color he brought to the important modulation from minor to major. Phillips played this section with a lighter bow stroke, finding a narrative contrast within the movement that made its harmonic contrast both apparent and meaningful.

Abramovic brought out the rhythmic vitality of Liszt's unifying motive in the Hungarian's tour de force fantasy sonata, "Apres une lecture du Dante." Abramovic artfully balanced the work's turbulent beginning with its exuberant ending.

It was an odd programming choice to place Liszt's structurally free work immediately beside Bach's Partita -- the direct comparison to Bach's highly organized work heightened Liszt's structural incongruity.

Phillips and Abramovic joined forces in Beethoven's "Kreutzer Sonata," projecting the intensity of Beethoven's opening movement and shaping the dramatic structure quite well. Their treatment of the initial movement's false ending adagio was particularly strong, but their best ensemble work came in the final movement.