MUSIC REVIEW : VIENNA OCTET AT EBELL

The Vienna Octet brought its civilized, immaculately polished wares to the Wilshire Ebell Theatre on Wednesday to the delight of a large Music Guild audience.

These first-chair players of the Vienna Philharmonic opened a long but never wearying program at the top, so to speak, by presenting the grandly scaled Clarinet Quintet of Brahms in a reading by turns intense and gentle, with the vibratoless, straight-arrow clarinet of Peter Schmidl appropriately dominating the sweet-toned, lightweight string quartet composed of violinists Werner Hink and Mario Beyer, violist Josef Staar and cellist Friedrich Dolezal.

The dark moonings of Brahms gave way to the chiaroscuro of Hugo Wolf’s sly “Italian Serenade” (originally for string quartet) in an arrangement by Alfred Hartl, tongue-in-cheekily executed by the full ensemble: the aforementioned quintet plus bassist Herbert Manhart, bassoonist Dietmar Zeman and horn player Guenther Hoegner.

Beethoven’s doggedly chipper Septet in E-flat seemed a good deal shorter and more substantial than usual in the hands of these energetic masters of Classical style.

Presided over by Hink’s mercurial violin, with notable assists from Hoegner, the dashing elegance of Dolezal’s cello and, again, the incisive clarinet of Schmidl, the ensemble put some welcome sting into Beethoven’s sugar-coated chestnut.