Southwest Chamber Celebrates Krenek

The Southwest Chamber Music concerts this season connect heavily with music theory, particularly in its more philosophical and cosmological manifestations. The centennial of Ernst Krenek, a composer of far-ranging theoretical interests and inspirations, fits nicely into the “Music of the Spheres” theme, as demonstrated Tuesday in a tight, expressive program at Zipper Concert Hall.

The program was made even more compact when a hand injury to violinist David Ryther eliminated Krenek’s string trio “Parvula Corona Musicalis” from the agenda. (A substitute has been found and the trio will be restored when the program is repeated tonight at the Norton Simon Museum.) In its place Gayle Blankenburg played Krenek’s Piano Sonata No. 7 a second time.

Actually the first time, as its scheduled performance was the concert finale, but welcome in any order. This final sonata--composed in 1988, three years before Krenek died--is a spacious meditation on shape and texture, on the dimensionality of sound. Edgy subtexts and wry commentary occasionally burst into the foreground, but in the main this is a very open and inviting piece, rich in color and immediate in effect.

Blankenburg played it with elegant power and poise. Timbre and articulation define the planes of this musical construct as much as pitch and time, and she gave each note appropriate weight and spin. She prefaced the second performance with a direct and carefully balanced account of Charles Wuorinen’s arrangement of Josquin’s motet “Ave Christe.”

Krenek’s 1972 setting of three poems by Lilly von Sauter found him in a reflective and even rustic mood, relying on whimsy and evocation. Soprano Katherine Arthur sang them with engaging spirit, supported by immaculate control of line, text and tone--and the deft accompaniment of Blankenburg.

In the context, opening with a set of Renaissance instrumental pieces made at least abstract sense. But the weak and fretful playing of lutanist Stuart Fox suggested no reason for this particular group of fantasias and pavanes by Luys Milan.

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Southwest Chamber Music repeats this program tonight at 8. Norton Simon Museum, 411 W. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. $10-$25. (800) 726-7147.