Beethoven, Mozart and Wild West

Peggy Preuss and Janet Windle, evidently in agreement with the musical theory that it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing, set an allegro molto e vivace tempo for the Friday gala that inaugurated the La Jolla Chamber Music Society’s SummerFest ’88.

In what by now has become a regular rite of summer, Peggy and her husband, entrepreneur Peter Preuss, who is sporting a fresh red Lincolnesque beard, hosted their third season-opening reception, concert and dinner for some 90 principal benefactors of the LJCMS summer concert series. Windle joined Peggy Preuss as gala co-chairman.

Since most of the guests were repeat visitors to the modern Gothic estate, Preuss and Windle dreamed up a novel Southwestern theme that led to such inspired touches as dinner tables heaped with sand, centered with cactuses and populated with barking green coyotes and slithering pink rattlers whittled by Mexican artisans. No detail was overlooked, from the long-horned cattle skulls decorating hors d’oeuvres buffets to the tiny, lavender borage blossoms that floated in the guests’ champagne flutes. All in all, it made quite a setting for an evening of Mozart and Beethoven.

Cocktails and the late dinner were on a lawn carved out of the surrounding eucalyptus groves, but the concert, as would seem logical for chamber music, was in the house. “Having chamber music in a private home is so civilized,” said Peggy Preuss. “It’s a unique format these days--I know of no other party that follows a concert with a sit-down dinner. I’d like to do it every week and invite all my friends.”

Quite a few of those friends were present, in fact, a point made by co-chair Windle. “This is such an intimate evening, and it really is a gathering of friends. All of us here are like one big family, since so many of the same people return from year to year to share a common experience.”

LJCMS President Marie Olesen said, simply but pointedly, that the evening was “hearkening back to our roots. Performance in a private home is what chamber music is all about.” Contemporary circumstances do not permit much of this, however; virtually all the performances, which run through Aug. 30th, will be given in La Jolla’s Sherwood Auditorium.

Guests arrayed themselves on folding chairs and, more comfortably, oversized sofas in the Preuss’ soaring living room, whose acoustics drew in snatches of music from the next room, where oboist Allan Vogel and his fellow musicians churned out a tantalizing selection of practice notes.

The concert commenced on a witty note with Benjamin Britten’s “Six Metamorphoses for Solo Oboe, Opus 49,” a series of wry tributes to the Ovidian myths. Beethoven’s “String Trio in c minor, Opus 9, No. 3” followed, with the “Oboe Quartet in F Major, K.370” by Mozart--whose work always makes a tasty musical desert--concluding the program.

All Kept Still

Although social performances usually snare a few participants who would rather be somewhere or anywhere else, one looked in vain for the nodding heads that, at concerts, usually indicate souls at rapturous rest. At the same time, the birds of the air, the beasts of the forest and the caterers, all of whom can provide musical accents at variance with a set program, kept completely still during the performance, presumably soothed by the silken notes.

As Gioacchino Rossini is rumored to have said, nothing works up a good appetite like a chamber concert, and, the program concluded, the guests and musicians headed back outdoors for a Southwestern feast in four movements. The dinner certainly added a little spice to the evening with its garnishes of chili butter and jalapeno relish, and there was a possibly unintended musical reference in the entree. Oversized glass service plates had been dressed with straw, and when the dinner plates containing stuffed Cornish game hens were placed atop them, it was impossible not to think of “Turkey in the Straw.” However, Cornish hen it most certainly was, and the excellent dessert of black currant empanadas banished all speculative thinking. Forks and knives moved in time to the beat set by hundreds of astonishingly well orchestrated crickets.

The Guest List

The guest list included over-all SummerFest chairman Joan Bernstein and her husband, Eugene; festival artistic director Heiichiro Ohyanma and his wife, Gail; Olivia and Bill Werner; Merrel Olesen; Cynthia and Don Rushing; Joy and Ed Frieman; UC-San Diego Chancellor Richard Atkinson and his wife, Rita; Charmaine Kaplan; Rita and Josiah Neeper; Bea and Bob Epsten; Joan and Irwin Jacobs; Ellen and Roger Revelle; Jean and Jack Morse; Louise Deane; Jack Windle; Shirley and Harry Gillespie; Bill Purves, and Victoria Hamilton with Paul Hobson.

LA JOLLA--Judith Harris and Robert Singer and Lee and Frank Goldberg gathered up about a hundred pals Wednesday and stuffed them mercilessly with canapes while previewing the upcoming Neiman-Marcus Catalogue Caper.

The Caper will take place at the Fashion Valley speciality store on Saturday, Sept. 10; the preview was given among the rare books and documents of the James S. Copley Library.

This will be the third annual Catalogue Caper, a party that takes its name from the famous Neiman-Marcus Christmas book, and invites its participants to become amateur sleuths whose rewarding task is to solve clues hidden around the store that lead to extravagant prizes. Harris, who will chair the event, said that the party gives participants “more mileage to the dollar. We not only have a fabulous treasure hunt, but two bands will play continuously and Bobby Short will give two nightclub performances.”

Short, the famous chanteur from New York’s Cafe Carlyle, will indeed be on hand in a specially designed nightclub staffed with its own doorman and maitre d’. Guests will be encouraged to tip heavily to secure the best tables, with all proceeds going to the Caper’s traditional beneficiary, the Whittier Institute for Diabetes and Endocrinology. Proceeds have been designated to assist in laboratory additions for Nobel Laureate Roger Guillemin and the staff of 29 who will join the Whittier faculty in January.

The guests, mostly committee members and underwriters, already were converts to the party. Most have previous experience with the Caper, and many have carted away prizes worth several times the price of admission. Among those present were Nancey and Burt Benjamin, Karen and Don Cohn, Joan and Al Arias, Berneice and Dempsey Copeland, Linda and Chuck Owen, Karen Speidel, Marian Smith, Ann Jones, Janet Gallison, Alice Cramer, David Copley and Susan Farrell. For information, call the Whittier Institute.

Yet another unusual fund-raiser was announced last week. “The Gourmet Bubble Bash,” which will benefit the San Diego Service Center for the Blind, will be given Oct. 7 at the new Standards of Excellence kitchen and bath appliance and fixture showroom on Morena Boulevard.

Nancy Hester and Cuilly Burdett will co-chair the unusual evening, which will feature a cocktail buffet prepared by top local restaurants and caterers in the five working on-premises kitchens. The food is the calmer of the details, however; since there also are working showers and tubs in the showroom, the “Bubble Bash” will fill them with towel-clad models whose jobs it will be to serve champagne and other potables. Bring your jammies and toothbrush, and call the San Diego Service Center for the Blind for further information.