Berlin Woodwind Quintet in Good Humor

Disparate and contrasting composers of this century--Ligeti, Villa-Lobos, Carter, Schuller, Barber and Julio Medaglia--shared a program Sunday afternoon in Pasadena, and surprisingly, everything meshed.

What brought such different compositional styles into line? Primarily the demands and limitations of the medium in question Sunday, the woodwind quintet. Playing on the Coleman Concerts series in Beckman Auditorium at Caltech, the Berlin Philharmonic Woodwind Quintet put together a serious but lighthearted, substantial and buoyant program.

Returning to Southern California five years after its debut appearances here, the ensemble remains as virtuosic and skilled a unit as any on the chamber-music circuit. The quiet stage deportment of the players--flutist Michael Hasel, oboist Andreas Wittmann, clarinetist Walter Seyfarth, hornist Fergus McWilliam and bassoonist Henning Trog--belies impassioned, emotionally specific and wide-ranging performances.

Good humor seems to be the compositional common denominator when it comes to woodwind quintets. Ligeti’s characterful Six Bagatelles (1953), showy and complex vignettes that demand deep mechanical skills and tight ensemble work, keeps the listener concentrated and amused. As usual, Ligeti produces the most musical interest in the briefest space.

Carter’s rarely heard Quintet, from 1948, is complicated, as might be expected, but at the same time highly accessible. Villa-Lobos’ “Quintette en forme de Cho^ros” surprises through its density, yet its dance rhythm opens up the instrumental textures.

Medaglia’s multilayered and virtuosic romp, titled “Brazilian Suite,” closed the program by again challenging the players’ technique and ensemble skills. Their playing of this set of four dance-based pieces created a climax of showmanship, and an encore, in an American folk medley, materialized.