Music Reviews : Chamber Music/LA Revives Kreisler Work

The appearance of familiar music on a program is always justified by polished and insightful performance of it--this the musicians gathered for the second event in this year’s Chamber Music/LA Festival accomplished admirably.

At the center of Wednesday’s concert in the Japan America Theatre, however, stood a relative novelty, the String Quartet in A minor by Fritz Kreisler. Setting the work apart from most of what Kreisler wrote is not only its length, but its emotional scope as well: the expected charm and elegance are present in abundance, but so are genuine passion and urgency.

The players who addressed themselves to it--Paul Rosenthal, Christiaan Bor, Marcus Thompson, Nathaniel Rosen--apparently saw Kreisler at the head of the score and decided that charm and elegance alone would do just nicely. This they supplied plentifully in an ultra-neat, unruffled, graceful and above all urbane reading. It was stupendous--as far as it went.

The performance of Schubert’s Piano Trio in E-flat after intermission impressed through ease and understatement too, yet it didn’t lighten the music. Here, the players--Bor, Ronald Thomas, Edward Auer--gave unexaggerated, singing accounts of melody within an up-tempo, never dawdling framework.

Beethoven’s “Kakadu” Variations opened the program, with Yukiko Kamei, Rosen and Auer providing a relaxed and intimate account. Balance proved a key to the reading, pianist Auer allowing plenty of sonic space for his string partners to express themselves quietly and fluently.