Music Reviews : Mozart, Brahms Clarinet Quintets at Taper

Croissants, coffee and chamber music at the Taper remains one of the more endearing traditions in town, with its unorthodox yet civilized starting time--10:45 a.m.--and free refreshments on the Music Center plaza.

Sunday morning’s edition at the Mark Taper Forum featured just a pair of cornerstones of the clarinet literature--the clarinet quintets of Mozart and Brahms.

In the wrong hands, this could have meant a morning of routine languor. But the skilled ad-hoc quintet on hand (James Kanter, clarinet; Margaret Batjer, Rene Mandel, violins; Richard Elegino, viola; David Speltz, cello) proved otherwise.

With Mandel playing first violin, the Mozart work was treated to a warmly affectionate reading, emerging properly into a crisp finale. Kanter tended to blend in reticently with the strings, displaying an occasional, slightly harsh-edged tone in the softest passages. Yet he proved himself technically unflappable, clearly articulating the rapid variations in the finale.

The performance of the Brahms quintet definitely had more heat, much of which was generated by the gutsier, more assertively emotional playing of first violinist Batjer, switching with Mandel.

The series’ indefatigable artistic director, Henri Temianka, prefaced each work with his usual lively commentary on the composers.