FINALE OF CHAMBER MUSIC/LA FESTIVAL

The 1987 Chamber Music/LA Festival at the Japan America Theatre ended on Sunday with a charming performance of Dvorak’s folk-dancy String Sextet in A, Opus 48, the sort of work one hears only at rare events like these, where a basically heterogeneous group--as distinguished from a permanently constituted ensemble--gathers to make intimate music.

While one might have asked for more temperament and sonority than was provided by first violinist Christiaan Bor, his playing remained polished and sweet in tone throughout. Luckily, he had the advantage of a lively, expert team of co-players to provide the necessary propulsiveness: second violinist Yukiko Kamei, violists Milton Thomas and James Dunham, and cellists Peter Rejto and Nathaniel Rosen.

What preceded the Dvorak on this attractive, neatly balanced program was, in fact, even better. First came the Mozart G-minor Quartet for Piano and Strings, K. 478, in which pianist Jerome Lowenthal offered playing of sensitive simplicity, fluent and unencumbered by Romantic mannerisms. Kamei, Dunham and Rejto were his sympathetic, stylish colleagues.

Lowenthal showed another aspect of his artistry when subsequently he joined cellist Nathaniel Rosen to communicate--grandly--the Romantic excesses of the youthful, Brahmsian (and Mendelssohnian and Schumannesque) Sonata in F of Richard Strauss. The two men formed a truly heroic team, Lowenthal hurling out fistfuls of handsomely sculpted notes while Rosen filled the hall with waves of gorgeous, vibrant sound.

A word of praise, finally, for an unsung heroine of the local chamber music scene: Kathy Henkel, who provides the helpful, intelligently straightforward program notes for such presentations as those of the Chamber Music/LA Festival and the Sequoia String Quartet.