Schubert Ensemble Plays a Novel Program

One of the attractions of ensembles of nonstandard and flexible instrumentation is that they frequently come bearing novel programs. Such was the case Sunday afternoon at Caltech’s Beckman Auditorium, when the Schubert Ensemble of London made its first appearance on the Coleman Concerts series.

The E-flat Quintet by Johann Nepomuk Hummel, which served as a model of sorts for Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet, introduced the ensemble. Virtually a chamber piano concerto of faux-Mozartean sensibility, the quintet was sparked by the lyrically eloquent playing of pianist William Howard, with amiable accompaniment and incidental doodling from violinist Simon Blendis, violist Douglas Paterson, cellist Jane Salmon and bassist Peter Buckoke.

With a bassist present, something by Bottesini is almost inevitable on such a program. The celebrated bass virtuoso was also a composer and conductor of opera, and his “Passione Amorose” is basically an instrumental opera scena, played with swooning charm by Buckoke and Salmon, pertly accompanied by Howard.

Rounding out the first half was the A-minor piano quartet movement that escaped Mahler’s purge of his juvenilia. Howard, Blendis, Paterson and Salmon kept the heat on low, producing a dark, simmering reading with real dramatic gains from understatement.

A genuine masterpiece, Faure’s seething G-minor Piano Quartet No. 2 held the second half alone. The players rode its volatile rhythmic tides with passionate grace, balanced in sound and independent in expressive nuance. They placed the emotional weight on an Adagio quicker than many but rich in haunted subtexts and let the three Allegro molto movements dart in tense agitation.

The Schubert ensemble is also an active commissioner of new music, and in encore offered Judith Weir’s short, sternly evocative piano quartet arrangement of an old Spanish tune.