Gidon Kremer is a great violinist and an even great musician, and yet greatness was in short supply tonight in Herbst Theater. At a San Francisco Performances recital, Kremer presented an unusual program - something he always does, to his credit and to the audience's enjoyment - with some high points and nothing really going "wrong," but the magic was mostly missing. "French Connections" came and went, but one's heart did not sing. One reason for that could be Kremer's choice of a partner. Naida Cole is a young Canadian, with fashion-model looks, fingers of steel, the ability to perform long complex works without a score (such as two unending parts of Messiaen's "Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jesus"), but... All evening long, Cole played on the surface of the music, not delving into it, her physical rigidity seemingly translated into stiff performances. While a technically dazzling pianist, Cole's take on Satie's "Gymnopedie No. 1," for example, came across as a school exercise - simple-boring, not simple-sublime. Kremer's choice of her is especially puzzling because of his brilliance of selecting young musicians and driving them (gently) to ever-greater heights, as you can experience at any concert of the Kremerata Baltica. The Kremer-Cole combination, at least tonight, produced a fine concert, but memorable moments could be counted on one hand, coming in Kremer's performance of Ysaye's Sonata in G Major for Solo Violin, and in the violin part of Satie's "Choses vues a droite et a gauche (sans lunettes)." The evening's major work, a "symphony for two," was very enjoyable (getting a big audience reaction), but it's establishing a dangerous precedent at this time of diminishing orchestra budgets - and I am only half kidding. Who knows what budget cuts coming our way? Ernst Alder's transcription of Franck's big, splashy Symphony in D minor makes the work sound as if it was written originally for violin and piano (it wasn't); the performance was fluent and facile, quite without new insight or value added... and that is just not what one expects from Kremer. Janos Gereben/SF www.sfcv.org [log in to unmask]