Warmth: What has Pitch Got to do With It?

Within a week recently I heard two expert performances by top-notch instrumentalists on two radically different instruments neither of which I play or know anything about except as an occasional collaborator and frequent listener.  No aspect of either performance could be said to be flawed.

And yet...

I do not recall from either concert a single moment of being swept into an unexpected shared perception of beauty.  Precision, surely--a kind of perfection, even.

But to what end?