MUSIC REVIEW : Mozart Quintet Plays Lightly, Tightly at UCI

The Stanford String Quartet offered a menu of easily digested fare by Mozart, Mendelssohn and Walter Piston on Sunday at the Fine Arts Concert Hall at UC Irvine.

For this third program of the UCI Chamber Music series entitled “Artist Faculty and Distinguished Guests,” the ensemble was joined by faculty clarinetist Gary Bovyer for a most delectable Mozart Clarinet Quintet.

Bovyer, who appeared earlier in this season’s series with the Toyon Woodwind Quintet, served up a delicious combination of song and gentle humor on this occasion. He held fast to an open, inviting sound in the softest sustained sections of Mozart’s Larghetto aria. Not even the challenge of swift register leaps could hinder the clarinetist’s control in the good-natured theme and variations. Instead, Bovyer maintained mastery over the work with ebullience.

Meanwhile, the quartet--violinists Andor Toth and Susan Freier, violist Bernard Zaslav and cellist Stephen Harrison--partnered with less extroverted enthusiasm, supplying understated answers to Bovyer’s vocally conceived phrasing. Sometimes sacrificing linear definition, the strings concentrated instead on a sweet, stylish blend.

Toth, however, did emerge from the background to unfold the countermelody of the Minuet. Here, caressive attention to nuance imparted surging direction to the duet.

The Stanford Quartet’s strength lies in its remarkable control. The fast-paced outer movements of Walter Piston’s String Quartet No. 1 provided perfect showcases for this asset (as did the finale of Haydn’s Opus 76, No. 5, the encore of the evening) by demanding energetic insistence from the performers.