MUSIC REVIEW : Winds Mix Fun, Impeccable Musicianship

Impishness pervaded the ensemble formed by pianist Armen Guzelimian and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Winds on Tuesday, and the fun was infectious.

The program of music by Poulenc, presented in Founders Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, offered considerable opportunity for good-natured fun: fast-moving phrases tossed playfully among oboe, bassoon and piano in the 1926 Trio; offbeat humor that marched along to Guzelimian’s strict tempo and unabashed accents in the B-flat Minor Novelette for piano solo; the free-for-all abandonment of the allegro vivace opener of the Sextet for Piano and Winds.

Still, the group--with flutist David Shostac, oboist Allan Vogel, clarinetist Gary Gray, bassoonist Kenneth Munday, and hornist Richard Todd--immersed its humor in exquisite refinement and impeccable musicianship, and contrasted it with moments of commanding profundity.

In the 1962 Sonata for Oboe and Piano--a lament to Poulenc’s friend Prokofiev, who had died nine years previously--Vogel offered a moving elegy in dark tones. During the final movement, the duo built to climactic waves and receded to a quiet so inviolate that the audience waited a full 20 seconds before piercing the silence with applause.

The same duo, joined by Munday in the Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano, drew finely etched, unhurried lines marked by minute attention to one another in the Andante. True, Munday’s bassoon leaked a bit of air here and Vogel’s instrument hesitated before speaking one or two notes of the sonata. But nothing could weaken the special understanding these performers conveyed to their listeners.

Shostac also imparted unique sensitivity to his spotlight, the popular Sonata for Flute and Piano. He lost some of the excitement of the first movement, as well as some of the contrast between that and the second, by choosing a very modest allegro. Instead, he permitted lines to unfold with natural ease, as if he wanted to ensure each note its due.

Bolstered by a big, silvery tone, and backed by Guzelimian’s ever-attentive accompaniment, Shostac sang out the heart-rending cantilena with moving devotion and brought unfaltering staccato to a most giocoso presto.

Throughout the evening, members of the ensemble displayed practiced awareness of one another’s musical inclinations. During the prestissimo finale of the closing sextet, they finished each other’s phrases with an unerring sense of inevitability, and effortlessly united the sections of this multifaceted work.