Quintet Captures Tension, Hope Offered by Schnittke

Perhaps there was a sense of cultural disconnection in hearing some of Alfred Schnittke’s bleakest musical thoughts in the paradise of Pacific Palisades on Wednesday night. But then, that might well have been the point, for Schnittke’s idiom is riddled with contradictions and ironies--and the powerful Chamber Music Palisades performance of his Piano Quintet in St. Matthew’s Parish would have made a profound impact anywhere.

This is Schnittke wearing his Russian mystic mask; the tempos are funereal, the strings indulge in harrowing sliding clusters and cascading tremolos, and the piano tolls soulfully through most of the piece, save for a mockingly carefree waltz that emerges in the second movement and as a ghostly reprise in the Finale.

It was clearly conceived in the shadow of Shostakovich, who was still alive during most of its gestation (1972-1976), writing chamber works in a similar mood, if not as acerbic a language. But unlike Shostakovich, Schnittke offers hope at the end as the clusters soften and the piano lingers on with a haunting, gentle tune.

The quintet on hand--pianist Delores Stevens, violinists Roger Wilkie and Nina Evtuhov, violist Michael Nowak and cellist John Walz--caught it all, pouring on the intensity in the right places, effectively building and decreasing the tension. The church’s cloudy acoustics even heightened the effect, capturing and suspending the notes in the air.

Earlier, though, the acoustics were definitely a hindrance, blurring the ensemble in the quickly paced movements of Telemann’s Suite for Flute and Strings.

Heard here in a one-instrument-per-part reduction for flute and string quartet, with some alternative reordering of the last three movements, the suite found flutist Susan Greenberg shining most brightly in her one-on-one dialogues with Walz. Walz and Stevens also conveyed appealing rusticity and equally balanced teamwork in Beethoven’s Seven Variations on “Bei Mannern, welche Liebe fuhlen” from Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.”