MUSIC AND DANCE REVIEWS : PAIR OF OCTETS

A contrasting pair of octets for string and winds constituted the bill of fare for Saturday’s Chamber Music/LA Festival presentation at the Japan America Theatre.

The 1958 Hindemith Octet--whose performance on this occasion was dedicated to the memory of Lawrence Morton--is both brainy and accessible, humorous, too, in the pudgy, learned fashion of the composer’s last years.

This rarely encountered work, with its fugues, canons and tricky rhythms, was given a hugely spirited, for the most part polished, reading by an ensemble of violinist Yukiko Kamei, violists Milton Thomas (encountering intonational problems in the flashy part Hindemith wrote for himself) and James Dunham, cellist Peter Rejto, bassist Buell Neidlinger, clarinetist Gary Gray, hornist Richard Todd, and bassoonist Kenneth Munday.

There were traces of raggedness in Schubert’s Octet in F, but it was still a strong showing. The unbecoming tensions imparted by Ida Kavafian’s aggressive first violin were mitigated by the mellow, songful clarinet of Gary Gray and the lush-toned, delightfully uninhibited playing of cellist Nathaniel Rosen.

The Schubert team further included Christiaan Bor, second violin, and the Messrs. Dunham, Neidlinger, Todd and Munday, all doing their considerable best to project the charm of the piece while minimizing its longueurs.