Music Reviews : Berlin Octet Performs at Gindi Auditorium

If a program is to end with Schubert’s doggedly chipper, hourlong Octet in F, what precedes it had better give us a glimpse of a darker side of life.

On Monday, in its Los Angeles Philharmonic-sponsored concert at Gindi Auditorium, the Berlin Octet chose instead to precede Schubert with major tonalities and minor music, beginning with 20 minutes of near-dead air in the form of a Septet by Friedrich Witt (1770-1836).

The piece is grounded in peasant dances of the sort Beethoven and Weber could transform into gold. Witt’s bumptious rhythms are, however, not joined to significant melody.

The players--members of the (East) Berlin Symphony--honored triviality with clean-toned, well-balanced ensemble, featuring some neat licks from the hornist, Kurt Palm, and the bassoonist, listed in the program as Fritz Finsch, “born in 1927,” but looking barely out of his 20s.

The tantalizing prospect of Rossini’s Duet in D for Cello and Bass did not deliver the expected sophisticated humor. The piece is, rather, a sober exercise in problem solving, the problems being how to integrate the timbres of the two low-down instruments, yet have each retain its identity and offer the bass something more to do than grunt and bumble.

Only partial solutions are found, since the cello tends to remain in its low register while the bass roams freely. The net aural effect is more that of a series of gastric disturbances than of viable music.

Still, one had to admire a performance as accurate and keenly nuanced as that by cellist Rolf Dohler and bassist Barbara Sanderling (wife of conductor Kurt Sanderling).

Finally, Schubert’s Octet emerged in a sweet, neatly turned, relaxed reading, gently propelled by first violinist Konrad Other and clarinetist Michael Simm.

If great enthusiasm can’t be mustered for this raison d’etre of such an accomplished group as the Berlin Octet, attribute it to what preceded and to flagging concentration--certainly this listener’s, possibly the players’. By the fourth movement, a combination of slowish tempos and lack of rhythmic thrust had begun to blur the line between easy-going and not-going-at-all.