Chamber mini-series showcases newcomers

Completing its first 50 years this spring, Philharmonic Society of Orange County has launched a mini-festival of chamber music, one to be performed in Laguna Beach Artists Theatre and one that may become an annual event.

The concept, a worthy one, is to introduce emerging young ensembles of high promise in a series of concerts in tandem with veteran chamber musicians. The benefits -- for audience and for the players involved -- are clear.

The new project began auspiciously last week. On Tuesday, pianist Claude Frank, a beloved American musician, opened the festival with a condensed retelling of the lives of Robert and Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms at Hotel Laguna. Three concerts in Artists Theatre, Friday through Sunday, completed the agenda.

On Friday night, before a large and rapt audience, pianist Frank, the Calder Quartet and Trio Movado shared the program, yet did not interact with each other. Such interaction happened later in the weekend when the participants meshed to play works by Brahms and Schumann.

The quartet -- four young men who formed this ensemble five years ago at the USC Thornton School of Music -- played Haydn’s Quartet in G minor, Opus 74, No. 3, “The Rider.” The Calder Quartet made a strong impression with its stylish Haydn playing, though one would like to hear the ensemble in a full program. This was a solid performance, but it never really got off the ground until the lively finale. Still, the players are suited to each other and admirable in their self-listening.

The young women of the piano trio Trio Movado come from the East Coast, where two of them are students at the Juilliard School; they played Brahms’ Trio in B, Opus 8.

Three highly talented and accomplished individuals, Trio Movado made Brahms’ Opus 8 the occasion of felicitous display but little probing. They all made good use of their opportunities without convincing us that Brahms was in the room.

At mid-program, Frank played Schubert’s final sonata, the one in B flat, D. 960. Not surprisingly, that centerpiece held the listener most tightly. This is a supreme masterpiece, and Frank, 77, is a great and serene music maker who retains a youthful passion and all his skills of communication.

One was reminded that Frank and many of the others who studied with the legendary Artur Schnabel are a disappearing breed: Leon Fleisher will soon be 75; Sylvia Kunin reaches 90 this summer.