MUSIC REVIEW : Southwest Society Premieres ‘L’Autunno’

The Southwest Chamber Music Society has a reputation for innovative, intelligent programming. Thursday’s concert was no exception, but the results this time were only modest in impact, despite the earnestness of the effort.

The featured work on this program of wind music--at Salmon Hall, Chapman College (repeated Friday at the Pasadena Library)--was the U.S. premiere of Hans Werner Henze’s “L’Autunno” (1977). This 30-minute, five-movement wind quintet, like much of Henze’s music, has a little bit of everything in it.

The musicians are required to play on no less than 12 instruments, from contrabassoon to Wagner tuba. The musical language ranges from the most dense atonal counterpoint to the relative simplicities of Bach, whose Magnificat is quoted near the end. There are solo cadenzas, explorations of timbre, rhythmic complexities, a short waltz, a heroic fanfare, melodies disjunctly effuse and intimately pensive.

In “L’Autunno,” Henze seems to relish his own ample creativity, the sheer mastery of his diversity of means. But, on first hearing at least, the work is diffuse; it would have benefited from editing. Its cumulative power lacks strong focus. The performance itself was attentive and confident, the instrumental switches done with ease.

Also on the program was Irving Fine’s Partita for Wind Quintet (1948). Its Stravinskian counterpoint and metrical acrobatics didn’t quite come off in the echoing acoustics of the hall. Prokofiev’s Sonata, Opus 94, for flute and piano fared better; flutist Dorothy Stone and Albert Dominguez gave it a bright-toned and assertive reading. Poulenc’s spirited Sextet for Piano and Winds received a muscular but not ineffective performance to close the program.