I can’t make it to all of the College of Charleston’s regular Monday Night concerts. But when I heard that fab fiddler Yuriy Bekker – the Charleston Symphony’s Concertmaster – was going to grace the series last week, not even an army of rabid Afghan terrorists could’ve kept me away. And lots of other local music lovers felt the same way: I haven’t seen the Simons Center’s Recital Hall packed that tight since before they started charging admission.

Providing classy piano support was the College’s accomplished Robin Zemp – and together, they delivered a shining pair of vintage sonatas for violin and piano, plus several lighter short numbers.

First up was Ludwig van Beethoven’s virtuosic Violin Sonata No. 3 in E-flat – a fairly early work that remains firmly rooted in the 18th-century’s elegant classical idiom. Bekker traversed it with dramatic aplomb – plus singing, silvery tone and jaw-dropping technique. He took the opening movement’s cascades of skittering runs at breakneck speed – and Zemp matched him tit-for-tat, with some glittering passagework of his own. Bekker’s patrician demeanor matched the music throughout.

But – in the following Violin Sonata No. 1 in G Major by Johannes Brahms – something amazing happened. A lush, golden hue suddenly enriched his instrument’s tone. His vibrato deepened, his phrasing became more expansive, and his interpretation got much more languorous and spontaneous. Visually, he became more animated; swaying as he played – and now you could read the music’s shifting emotions in his face.

Behold, Yuriy the irrepressible romantic. Most musicians alter their playing somewhat according to the music and period at hand, but I wonder if I’ve ever witnessed such a startling musical transformation as this. He seemed an entirely different musical creature: true testimony to his chameleon-like stylistic diversity. In his hands (and Zemp’s), the gorgeous, deeply emotional music reduced me to a puddle of quivering protoplasm. OK, I confess: Brahms often does that to me … but only when master musicians are at work.

The mood then lightened, beginning with Gabriel Faure’s gentle Berceuse (lullaby). Finally, we got a pair of engaging bonbons from Fritz Kreisler, the great early 20th-Century violinist and composer of delightfully drippy Viennese salon music. Bekker gave these pieces all the juicy tone and pensive emotion they needed, with just the right touch of schmaltz (without which Kreisler simply doesn’t work).

If you haven’t yet heard Bekker do his solo thing … you’re missing something super-special.