MUSIC REVIEW : Lawrence Wolfe in Recital at Schoenberg Hall

A happy clannishness pervaded the room in Schoenberg Hall Auditorium at UCLA Wednesday night when Lawrence Wolfe appeared in recital during the weeklong meeting of the International Society of Bassists. An audience of his peers cheered lustily for the young principal of the Boston Symphony and the Boston Pops.

Wolfe, clearly pleased to be so cheered, offered a varied program, the high point of which may have been Jacob Druckman’s jokey “Valentine” (1969), an eight-minute piece that entertains the observer as thoroughly as it exploits the sound-possibilities of the string bass. Here, and in works by Koussevitsky, Bach and Schubert, the soloist displayed many musical skills--and some inconsistencies.

He also made the most of the family feeling that filled the small auditorium. After a relaxed and pleasant run-through of Schubert’s “Arpeggione” Sonata, which ended the printed program, Wolfe brought on three colleagues: David Murray, Patrick Neher and Jeff Bradetich. This instant quartet of bassists then played three pops divertissements--encores in the form of medleys--in high and hilarious style.

At the beginning of the program, Wolfe, assisted sensitively by pianist Blaise Bryski, revived for the general listener four characteristic pieces by Serge Koussevitsky: “Andante Cantabile,” “Chanson Triste,” “Humoresque” and “Valse Miniature.”

These are not items of great weight, but they do serve to show off the expressive range of the double-bass. Despite variable success at achieving an unbroken legato line in sustained passages, Wolfe effectively indicated the range and sentiments of these morceaux.

Dangerously exposing, Bach’s Suite No. 3 for unaccompanied cello--in an apparently practical transposition--took its toll in tone-control, intonational discrepancies and general smoothness. The performance emerged musically viable, never undistorted, but often messy.