Tanglewood, Lenox, MA
July 1, 2014
by Michael J. Moran
The Boston Symphony Chamber Players ensemble is made up of
BSO principal players, often supplemented by other members of the orchestra.
They perform several times a year in Boston, and they recently made a welcome
return to Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood.
To celebrate their 50th anniversary season in 2013-2014, the
group commissioned new pieces from four composers. One was Yehudi Wyner’s wind
quintet, “Into the evening air,” which opened the concert. While its title
derives from an elegiac late poem by Wallace Stevens, most of its eight-minute
length is quite lively before it reaches a quiet ending.
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| Elizabeth Rowe, John Ferrillo |
The bracing textures of this colorful music were beautifully
rendered by flutist Elizabeth Rowe, oboist John Ferrillo, clarinetist William
R. Hudgins, bassoonist Richard Svoboda, and horn player James Sommerville.
Claude Debussy lived to finish only three of six chamber
pieces he started composing during the First World War. One of them was the
next piece on the program, his lovely “Sonata for Flute, Harp, and Viola,”
completed in 1915, which was ravishingly performed by flutist Rowe, violist
Steven Ansell, and harpist Jessica Zhou.
The program closed with a vibrant account of Franz
Schubert’s massive “Octet in F” for winds and strings. In 1824 a clarinetist
friend asked Schubert to write a piece modeled on Beethoven’s then popular
“Septet” for the same combination of instruments. Though he added a second
violin, Schubert even followed the same sequence of movements. The BSO ensemble
played the three slow movements with loving warmth and the three faster ones
with rousing vigor, except for the closing Allegro, whose relaxed tempo
emphasized its Austrian folk dance character.
The first violin and the clarinet had the most solo
passages, which BSO concertmaster Malcolm Lowe and clarinetist Hudgins
dispatched with flair and affection. Oboist Ferrillo, bassoonist Svoboda, and
horn player Sommerville also contributed distinctive playing, as did violinist
Haldan Martinson, cellist Sato Knudsen, and double bass player Edwin Barker.
While the wind instruments made their usual cooling impact
on this sultry evening, the playing by these seasoned musicians was as red hot
as the appreciative audience could have wanted.
