Chamber Music Society Sketches Outline of Weill

Though Kurt Weill once said that he didn’t write music with future generations in mind, in fact, some newly published letters reveal he cared deeply about what history would think. What he probably didn’t anticipate is that history would eventually value everything he did--and Monday night at Gindi Auditorium, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Chamber Music Society trotted out some favorites and rarities that produced a sketchy profile of this chameleon-like character’s early years.

With Barry Socher, Ingrid Chun, Dale Hikawa and Daniel Rothmuller digging in sumptuously and vehemently, the String Quartet No. 1 (1923) revealed an exuberant, tough-minded young composer immersed in dissonances and contrasting textures. Alas, cellist Howard Colf and pianist Elvia Puccinelli chose to perform only the second and third movements of the Sonata for Cello and Piano (1920)--the first movement has the best music--but it gave some idea of the piece’s clash between abstract agitation and lyricism.

Except for the march-like episode in the Quartet’s Scherzo, there was hardly a flicker of the Weill of “The Threepenny Opera” (1928) in either work. As if to underline the point, violinist Lawrence Sonderling offered unevenly played transcriptions of three songs from Weill’s biggest hit (with pianist Norman Krieger), followed by two more songs done to the hilt, cabaret-style, by soprano Karen Benjamin and pianist Alan Chapman.

After intermission, the Philharmonic players switched to the safer ground of Schumann’s Piano Quintet in a lush, often genteel rendition by violinists Kristine Whitson Hedwall and Chao-Hua Jin, violist Ingrid Runde Hutman, cellist Gloria Lum and pianist Joanne Pearce Martin. It would have been more valuable in this Weill centennial year to have heard more of his songs and chamber pieces; in any case, the Philharmonic’s upcoming performances of “The Seven Deadly Sins” will fill in the portrait a bit.