Music Reviews : Woodwind Octet From Vermont at Thorne Hall

Time was when a music reviewer’s chores sent him frequently to Occidental College’s charming Thorne Hall, one of the most satisfactory small concert rooms in the Los Angeles area. That the hall retains its special qualities was proved again Tuesday night when a woodwind octet representing Music From Marlboro took over the stage.

Rudolf Serkin’s famous summer festival-school in the Green Mountains of Vermont has long sponsored touring ensembles of varying sizes and capacities but of high musical accomplishment. The woodwind players of the present group met such a lofty standard in every respect.

In this ensemble, the values of precision, balance and stylishness are constantly conspicuous. There are no stars; the skills of the individual players are as equal as if they had been cut and measured from the same cloth. Tone matches tone, no matter which instruments are involved, and phrasing and dynamics all seem shaped by a common and discriminating intelligence.

Under such circumstances, it was little wonder that Mozart’s Divertimento in E-flat, K.252, came close to an ideal exposition of Mozartean savoir-faire. Yet, it still retained substantial qualities of warmth and flexibility.

The group was just as convincing in Janacek’s suite, “Mladi” (Youth). The free-wheeling ideas and spontaneous lyricism was formed and shaped with a freedom based on keen perception of style and content.

Gyorgy Ligeti’s Six Bagatelles for wind quintet written in 1953 were blessed with a light-handed charm not invariably to be found in this composer’s later and more aggressively modern work.

Though Beethoven’s Octet in E-flat bears the high opus number of 103, it actually is a product from the composer’s youth, dating from 1792. It brims with charm and irrepressible inventiveness and the Marlboro players delivered it with amiable spirit and beguiling polish.