PREVIN PACKS ‘EM IN, BUT STRINGS STEAL THE SHOW

Tuesday evening’s installment of SummerFest ’87 was awash in impassioned music-making, a virtuoso marathon to satisfy even the most ardent chamber music devotee. The true believers packed Sherwood Auditorium, spilling onto several rows set up on stage. Not surprisingly, the program that featured Andre Previn as pianist in the Ravel A Minor Trio and the Brahms F Minor Piano Quintet sold out soon after the festival was announced.

The stars of the evening, however, were cellist Ralph Kirshbaum and violinist Gyorgy Pauk in the Ravel and the string quartet that complemented Previn in the Brahms. Pauk and Kirshbaum rightly discerned the spiritual anguish beneath the surface of the Ravel and projected it with athletic abandon. While the two string players executed their ardent pas de deux, Previn marked time with a cool, reflective and disappointingly monochromatic keyboard accompaniment.

Even the intensity of the Ravel paled before the rousing performance of Brahms’ Piano Quintet. Violinists Miriam Fried and Andres Cardenes, violist Heiichiro Ohyama and cellist Ronald Leonard merged into an opulent timbre and unanimity of expression that rivaled the most seasoned string quartet. The soulful Romanticism of Brahms’ work sprung from these players’ innermost depths, with Fried and Ohyama shaping the composer’s effulgent melodic expression. Especially in the quintet’s opening movement and the heroic scherzo, the string players’ arching lines cast a rhapsodic spell.

Previn’s performance in the Brahms had more presence and conviction, but even his forte passages lacked a certain depth. His repertory of keyboard touch and articulations was modest, to say the least.

The concert opened with Beethoven’s rarely heard Quintet for Piano and Woodwinds, Op. 16. Designed to show off the young composer’s keyboard prowess, this splashy homage to Mozartean style suited pianist David Golub to a T. He proved to be the model of elegant articulation, displaying a myriad of timbre contrasts with almost casual aplomb. Because the quintet is a kind of chamber-sized piano concerto, Golub indulged in requisite but tasteful bravura.

Golub’s accompanists, oboist Alan Vogel, clarinetist David Peck, bassoonist Dennis Michel and hornist Jerry Folsom, gave him vigorous pursuit, but they remained on the respectable side of rowdy. Vogel and Peck shared some delicious duos, especially in the slow movement, and Michel’s suave lines provided harmonious counterpoint.

The La Jolla Chamber Music Society’s festival continues with concerts Friday through Sunday night, with free open rehearsals in Sherwood Auditorium today and Saturday morning.