Southwest Chamber Hones Its Craft

Chamber music outdoors is something of a contradiction in terms, albeit an increasingly common one. Now in its fourth summer at the Huntington Library in San Marino, Southwest Chamber Music seems to be getting the music and environment matchups right.

Musical spirits and ensemble values were high from the very beginning Saturday evening on the east porch of the main art gallery, despite competition from errantly timed sprinklers.

Through the years, Southwest Chamber Music has fielded many string quartets, but the current lineup--Agnes Gottschewski and Amy Sims rotating the violin duties, violist Jan Karlin and cellist Marilyn Harris-Bardet--may well be its best ever. Impressively accomplished and eminently musical, this group is characterful yet integrated in sound and temperament.

No less a challenge than Mozart’s popular “Hunt” Quartet, K. 458, proved that this quartet--put together only a few months ago--is the equal of many higher-profile full-time ensembles. Taut but unhurried, this was a richly detailed and warmly communicative reading, lacking only more adventuresome probing of the Adagio.

The other big piece on the program was “Sir Blue Slips a Trend,” a group of five colorful fugues by Frederick Lesemann. Though better known for electronically realized scores, Lesemann here demonstrates considerable instrumental insight and imagination, from the fiercely controlled rhythmic stutter of the “Blue Fugue” to the eerie liquid beauty of the “Trans-Fugue.” The Southwesters turned it out with obvious relish and pointed precision.

A blithe, frothy Flute Quartet by Johann Christian Bach, Opus 8, No. 3, featured the radiant work of Dorothy Stone. An expectedly tuneful, surprisingly substantial String Quartet in B-flat, Opus 8, No. 2, by the younger Bach’s contemporary Carl Friedrich Abel suffered the indignities of the opening sprinkler escapade.