MUSIC REVIEW : Pacific Trio Triumphs in Weighty Concert

In spite of Monday’s oppressive midday heat, an audience of 150 packed and spilled out of the music room of the La Jolla Athenaeum to hear the Pacific Trio perform a weighty concert of Brahms and Mendelssohn. Only the ensemble’s brilliant, impassioned playing justified enduring the unexpected noontime sauna.

Violinist Endre Balogh, pianist Edith Orloff and cellist John Walz make up the Los Angeles-based Pacific Trio, although Orloff now lives in San Diego.

The ensemble’s taut Mendelssohn D Minor Piano Trio, Op. 49, persuasively juxtaposed the composer’s fiery bravura with drawing-room elegance. This work may be a staple, but the Pacific Trio took nothing for granted in its vibrant, beautifully detailed performance. The scherzo proved to be a paradigm of Mendelssohnian effervescence, with no sacrifice to precision.

Orloff’s firm, articulate command of the brilliant keyboard part might have easily overshadowed less fluent string players. Fortunately, Walz’s generous, warm timbre and eloquent phrasing engaged the listener’s ear, in spite of the piano figuration. Although Balogh crafted incisive, well-turned lines, his approach seemed almost guarded in the company of the exuberant and assured Orloff and Walz.

San Diego Symphony principal clarinet David Peck joined Orloff and Walz in a robust reading of Brahms’ A Minor Clarinet Trio. Although Peck is not a regular member of the Pacific Trio, the players achieved a sympathetic level of integration and stylistic congruence. Peck’s slender, transparent timbre was no doubt faithful to the composer’s vision, but Walz’s plangent lines stole the spotlight on more than one occasion. In spite of a piano of modest proportions, Orloff coaxed a mountain of sound from the instrument, giving the work its accustomed depth and breadth. The group’s pacing and structural insights were exemplary.

Monday’s concert brought the Athenaeum’s weeklong arts festival to a successful close. The library’s regular Sunday concert series continues July 22 at 4 p.m. with La Stravaganza, a Baroque chamber ensemble whose members perform on period instruments.