Chamber music selection charming

By Ruth Bingham
Special to The Advertiser

•	Spring Wind Quintet, Chamber Music Hawaii with the Bergen Wind Quintet from Norway 7:30 p.m. tomorrow Honolulu Academy of Arts, Doris Duke Theatre $20 524-0815, ext. 245

Intellectually and emotionally stimulating, intimate and introspective, it rivets attention in the moment, untangling and reordering scattered thoughts into accord. Piece by piece, measure by measure, the hectic muddle of daily life slips away until, by the end, there is just the music — crystal clear and wonderfully complex.

The Spring Wind Quintet of Chamber Music Hawaii presented its Monday audience at Windward Community College's Paliku Theatre with a charming collection of works and fine performance.

Mozart's Adagio and Allegro in F Minor, K.594, was probably the draw for most attendees. The piece itself is not well known, especially as arranged for a wind quintet, but Mozart is, after all, Mozart.

The real gems of the concert, however, were those hardly anyone would recognize: "Little Scenes from China," five short sketches by Soong Fu-Yuan, and "Serenade for Wind Quintet," a four-movement work by Karl Pilss. Both were vividly painted, memorable, and thoroughly delightful.

Carl Nielsen's Quintet for Winds, Op.43, a treasured standard in wind quintet repertoire, concluded the evening, adding not only a more serious tone but also touches of surprise and humor. The third movement included a solo for English horn, its darker timbre something of a shock after listening to the oboe for so long. Also, Nielsen ended the bassoon part on an impressively low note one half-step below the instrument's lowest, achieved by inserting a large paper cone into the bell to extend its tubing.

The Spring Wind Quintet performers were flautist Susan McGinn, oboist Scott Janusch, clarinetist James Moffitt, bassoonist Marsha Schweitzer, and French hornist Jonathan Parrish, all members of the Honolulu Symphony.

Their performance was excellent, and it was a joy to hear them work together. Echoing, supporting, conversing, they listened intently and responded to each other, transforming homophonic passages into subtle counterpoint.

Each shone in solo passages, and instances of outstanding ensemble work were too numerous to mention. Words could not do justice to the effect of such music in any case.

A variation of the concert will be repeated tomorrow evening, when Chamber Music Hawaii's Spring Wind Quintet shares the stage with the Bergen Woodwind Quintet, which will perform Samuel Barber's "Summer Music." In lieu of Nielsen's Quintet, the two groups will combine to close with Charles Gounod's "Petit Symphonie."