MUSIC REVIEWS : Southwest Chamber Celebrates Carter

Widely lavished with the imprimatur “dean of American composers,” Elliott Carter wears his eminence softly, like a crown visible only to those who appreciate the composer’s uncompromising, fashion-resistant brand of genius. Few composers have Carter’s gift for devising knotty, complex, post-tonal music that flows so conversationally.

That point was brought home Saturday at the Pasadena Presbyterian Church. Celebrating the composer’s 85th birthday (last month), the Southwest Chamber Society kicked off a January series of concerts around Los Angeles dedicated to Carter.

In this cleverly framed program, the first half belonged to a pleasantry from Carter’s attic--hisCoplandesque “Pastoral” from 1940--and Mozart’s Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-flat, K. 452, sounding a bit labored and rough around the edges here. This was but a warm-up procedure for a pair of West Coast premieres of new music from this vital creator and thinker.

The concert’s second half, while brief, made up for the foibles of the first. Clarinetist Michael Grego nimbly maneuvered the supple, monologue-like contours of “Gra” for solo clarinet, dedicated to another prominent octogenarian composer, Witold Lutoslawski.

Bringing the program to its natural climax was Carter’s 1991 Quintet for piano and winds, inspired by Mozart’s model, but with a language all its own. Impulsive, interactive gestures and statements, jazzy glissandos, whiffs of whimsy and articulate bursts of anxiety, were passed around democratically to three entities--pianist Vicki Ray, hornist Jeff von der Schmidt and the wind unit of oboist Stuart Horn, Grego and bassoonist Leslie Lashinsky, all of whom performed vibrantly.

Guided by a flexible rhythmic thread, now jagged, now showing a steady pulse, the piece rode on waves of self-generated energy and interest rather than relying on any discernible formal structure. After a final dissonant crescendo, a smattering of notes serves as a wry afterthought to an exciting work, one both visceral and enigmatic.

In the bows, the beaming composer joined the ranks onstage.