Olmos Ensemble
After Victorian clutter, Modern air and light
Sept. 22, 2011The Olmos Ensemble’s move this season to Monday night concerts (from the accustomed Tuesdays) was a shock to the system and a fist in the face of the Eternal Verities, but one must grudgingly admit that the music-making did not suffer at the opening concert, Sept. 19 in First Unitarian-Universalist Church.
Two very agreeable works from the mid-20th century held the center of the program -- Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for oboe and piano and Samuel Barber’s “Summer Music” for woodwind quintet. Carl Reinecke’s Sonata “Undine” for flute and piano opened the concert. Mozart’s Quintet in E-flat for piano, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn, was the closer.
Pianist Warren Jones was in town from New York in the first of two Olmos appearances this season -- he returns in January to collaborate in Beethoven’s Quintet in E-flat, which was directly modeled on Mozart’s. Guest flutist Marianne Gedigian, who teaches at UT-Austin, joined regular Olmos winds Mark Ackerman (oboe), Ilya Shterenberg (clarinet), Sharon Kuster (bassoon) and Jeff Garza (horn).
Reinecke’s echt-Romantic“Undine,” inspired by a German folk tale and novel, is that little-remembered composer’s best-known work. He first came to prominence as a child-prodigy pianist, and “Undine” suffers from a showy, overwrought, overstuffed piano part in the first and last of its four movements. The best music is in the middle movements, a sprightly, impetuous intermezzo and a balladlike andante, in which Ms. Gedigian and Mr. Jones put their directness and moxie to most effective use.
If Reinecke's music was cluttered as a Victorian parlor, the other works on the program were airy and open.
Poulenc composed his Sonata in 1962, near the end of his life, and this music could be said to encapsulate that life. Angry outbursts interrupt the pensive lyricism of the opening Elegie, which, like the darker finale, ends in a questioning mood. The witty scherzo has tender, yearning material at its center.
Barber’s “Summer Music,” by turns languid, playful and celebratory, is handsomely made. It gives each of the players ample opportunities for individual virtuosity, and intricate, clearly delineated counterpoint demands taut teamwork. Both qualities were fully in evidence.
Mr. Jones was consistently stylish, and especially so in the Mozart quintet, to which he brought an ideal balance of crispness and lyricism. Mr. Ackerman was strangely shading flat at times, but otherwise the performnce was first-class all around.
Mike
Greenberg
