MUSIC REVIEW : Much to Cherish at Barclay : Nine Guest Players Shine at Second Concert of UCI Chamber Music Series

There was much to cherish Monday as the second concert in the UCI Chamber Music series was given at the Irvine Barclay Theatre. Too bad so few UC Irvine students and faculty remained on the campus during the holiday break, which began over the weekend.

The hundred or so, hard-listening and appreciative music lovers who did attend were treated to unhackneyed, if not unfamiliar, repertory expertly played by four Los Angeles Philharmonic members, four free-lance instrumentalists from throughout Southern California, and a guest narrator.

One seldom hears Stravinsky’s “The Soldier’s Tale” in so loving and detailed a performance as that narrated by Frank Muller with a resourceful septet consisting of violinist Michele Bovyer, bassist David Young, percussionist Perry Dreiman, clarinetist Gary Bovyer, bassoonist Rose Corrigan, trumpeter Rob Roy McGregor and trombonist Herbert Ausman.

Muller had most of the best opportunities, of course--and used them for a probing but apprehensible delectation of the text--but the remainder of the ensemble shone too, as individuals and as a group.

Without the superfluity of a conductor’s mediation, the critical element of timing was left to the best devices of the individual players, who neither missed a (dramatic) beat nor stepped on each others’ lines. More important, they played every part of the complicated score brilliantly and as a unit.

The novelty of this program came first, in Franz Hasenohrl’s chamber version of Richard Strauss’s tone-poem “Till Eulenspiegel: Einmal Anders!” (“Till Eulenspiegel: Another Way!”). For violin, clarinet, horn, bassoon and string bass, this adaptation has wit--both the composer’s and his transcriber’s--and transparency in its favor.

It must be fun to play. As performed brightly by Michele Bovyer, Gary Bovyer, hornist Steve Becknell, Corrigan and Young, the quintet certainly sounded like a pleasure, despite the many virtuosic demands of the separate parts.

The other pre-intermission work was Poulenc’s joyous Sonata (1922) for horn, trumpet and trombone, given a felicitously relaxed but unfortunately scattershot run-through by Becknell, McGregor and Ausman.