MUSIC REVIEW : Chamber Fest Premieres Heifetz Transcriptions

The music that Jascha Heifetz championed as a performer was widely varied stylistically, and the violinist’s taste was no less eclectic in the voluminous material he chose for transcription and arrangement.

Chamber Music/LA this year is a Heifetz tribute. The center of the central concert Sunday afternoon at Japan America Theatre offered five unpublished additions to the canon of Heifetz adaptations, in performances by two of the master’s protegees.

To Sherry Kloss fell two song transcriptions, a gentle Aubade by Faure and a zesty Argentinean “Jujena” by Lopez Buchardo, and an arrangement of an orchestral Romanza by Dohnanyi. In the last, Heifetz requires an unusual scordatura and a quick, mid-course retuning.

Kloss seemed discomfited by the Romanza tunings, but otherwise proved sovereignly lyrical. She applied supple grace and a throaty tone in rich, warm readings that stressed the singing nature of the originals.

Festival founder-director Yukiko Kamei took Richard Strauss’ moody “Stiller Waldpfad” and Moszkowski’s glittering “Etincelles.” She treated Strauss with quiet intensity and Moszkowski with light bravura, giving both the benefit of stylistic assurance and fluent technique.

Indonesian pianist Ayke Agus accompanied Kloss and Kamei with aplomb and distinction, as alert to the violinists’ idiosyncrasies as to the nuance of the scores.

Closing the program was Schubert’s protean, imposing Piano Trio in E-flat, D. 929. Pianist Jerome Lowenthal, violinist Paul Rosenthal and cellist Nathaniel Rosen tore into it with an exciting exuberance that brought the house to a standing ovation at the end.

Ultimately polished and perfected it was not, and hardly could be in this vigorously probing, almost defiantly risk-taking approach. But so much went so very right, emotionally as well as musically, that the few miscues only underscored the extent of the achievement.

Louis Spohr didn’t make much of the extra resources in his Double Quartet in D minor, which opened the concert. A momentarily engaging--if unmemorable--effort, it actually features the first violinist in concerto-like display, with the second quartet mostly relegated to uninspired accompaniment.

Christiaan Bor played the leading role with thin-toned, occasionally errant panache, ably joined in the first quartet by Rosenthal, violist Milton Thomas and Rosen. Kamei, Kloss, violist Ronald Copes and cellist Evan Drachman seconded them with well-balanced poise.