Chamber Soloists Display Strengths

The ensemble moniker may ring generic, but the New York Chamber Soloists is a group whose mission and power are contained in the name.

The group, expandable to suit the music, has been in existence since 1957. Its members are out to promote the wonders of chamber music, often embracing musical rarities and slightly odd instrumentation. The ranks are filled with musicians worthy as soloists, and yet they know the importance of esprit de corps.

They made an impressive appearance Sunday afternoon at Caltech with a program of Mozart, Prokofiev and Beethoven as part of the Coleman concert series. It was, all told, a good, persuasive afternoon for the chamber music cause.

All was not polished, though. A few intonational blemishes crept into the mix during Mozart’s Quintet in C Minor for Oboe, Violin, Two Violas and Cello, and an initially uneasy ensemble weave tightened as they progressed. At the same time, our ears adjusted to the odd textural balance between the strings and Melvin Kaplan’s oboe, taking the protagonist’s role, in this version, of the traditional first violin.

Though a more substantial work, Beethoven’s Septet in E-flat for Violin, Viola, Cello, Double Bass, Clarinet, Horn and Bassoon, Opus 20 is another flush-cheeked, vivacious piece. It slows down and darkens only fleetingly, as in the half-hearted funeral march that begins the final movement, quickly yielding to a brisk finale that gave a ripe showcase to violinist Helen Kwalwasser.

Capturing the greatest interest on this program, however, was Prokofiev’s Quintet for Oboe, Clarinet, Violin, Viola and Double Bass, a chamber piece originally written in 1924 for a short ballet called “Trapeze” and bristling with a skewed wit that the musicians delivered with flair. Full of yummy post-Stravinsky harmonies and tart polytonality, mixed with angular rhythms and abrupt endings, it sounds modern or at least engagingly, and wistfully, Modernist.