MUSIC REVIEW : A Brahmsian Finale for a French Fest

What’s in a title?

Not much, apparently, if you happen to be the menu-maker for the sixth annual Chamber Music/L.A. Festival, which offered its final concert Sunday afternoon at the Japan America Theatre.

This year’s valuable series bore a catchy catch-all: “French Music and Some Mozart, Too.” The theme was underscored by a whimsical logo on the cover of the printed program. It depicted a baguette of French bread masquerading as a fiddle.

On this occasion, however, the catch-all caught a lot of Brahms in addition to a little Mozart, Faure and Ravel. The afternoon was dominated by the German master’s massive, sprawling, almost symphonic Piano Quartet in A-major, Opus 26.

Aimez-vous Brahms?

Everyone does, of course. Unfortunately, the performance in question did not wholly justify the deviation from the projected focus of action. This wasn’t even the first such deviation. The five-day Gallic-Mozart festival had already sampled some Beethoven, Enesco and Schoenberg, not to mention Brahms’ Haydn Variations for two pianos. So much for unheralded eclecticism.

Sunday’s Brahms sounded oddly stodgy. One could admire the sturdy and cohesive sweep of Irma Vallecillo’s leadership at the keyboard. One could find satisfaction in the graceful linear interplay of violinist Yukiko Kamei (the festival’s artistic director), violist Milton Thomas and cellist Nathaniel Rosen. Still, one longed for subtler inflections of light and shade, and one regretted certain imbalances in string tone and timbre. One also lamented the pitch problems that frequently beset the viola.

The first half of the somewhat incoherent program offered robust attention to more fragile, more predictable challenges. No one here says chamber music has to be wispy or wimpy.

Flutist James Walker led Christiaan Bor, Thomas and David Speltz through a vibrant but acutely aggressive, sometimes even strident account of Mozart’s intricate Flute Quartet in D-Major, K. 285. Harpist Ayako Shinozaki concentrated on surface brilliance rather than introspection in the kitschy platitudes of Faure’s Impromptu, Opus 86.

Then she joined Walker, Gary Gray, Bor, Kamei, Thomas and Speltz in Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro for harp, flute, clarinet and string quartet. Most ensembles stress the vague poetic mists and blurry sonic vistas dictated by tradition in this delicately perfumed music. For better or worse--probably worse--the daring Los Angeles ensemble stressed fervor at the expense of finesse.

Incidental intelligence:

* The management kept the houselights so dim that the patrons found it impossible to read Kathy Henkel’s stimulating program notes.

* The concert attracted an unusually large, gratifyingly attentive, obviously sensitive audience. When crowds of Southern Californians voluntarily come in from the sun to hear relatively esoteric music downtown on a balmy holiday weekend, it must mean something.