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An entertaining evening with Mozart and Beethoven
The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society with Musicians from Marlboro
Tom Purdom
The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society closed its season with a Musicians from Marlboro program that included two pieces of irresistible pleasure music — a Beethoven sextet that combines a string quartet with two horns and a Mozart divertimento that combines a string quintet with two horns and an oboe.
That kind of mixed wind and strings program is one of the chief appeals of the Marlboro programs. An established touring quartet can vary its program by adding a composition that includes a clarinet or a piano, but it can’t do much more than that without breaking the bank. The Marlboro programs draw their players from the established veterans and promising newcomers who gather in Marlboro, Vermont every summer and hone their chamber music skills. The groups that go on the road can include any combination of instruments that might make a good program.
The Beethoven includes gay horn melodies, an adagio that alternates the horns with beautiful harmonies from the strings, and a final rondo with one of those a-hunting-we-will-go themes that only the horn can play properly. The Mozart includes horn fanfares, sinuous oboe melodies, a cheerfully creative set of variations, and a final march with lots of forward drive.
The Beethoven was a showcase for horn players Wei-Ping Chou and Patrick Pridemore. It doesn’t get played very much, but it’s a major contribution to the horn literature, in the same class as the four Mozart horn concertos traditionally placed at the top of the horn repertoire.
Between the two diversions, the string quartet in the group added a touch of gravitas with a Brahms quartet that tempered agitated tension with long, Brahmsian songs.
The Marlboro programs return PCMS to its roots. The founder of PCMS, Anthony Checchia, managed the Marlboro Festival, and the Chamber Music Society grew out of programs that featured the first Musicians from Marlboro groups. The PCMS staff still journey to Marlboro every year to run the festival. In Philadelphia, meanwhile, the offshoot has become the largest American presenter of chamber music outside of New York, with a 60-concert schedule that includes all the standard chamber music genres and a few unclassifiable items like Carol Jantsch’s November tuba concert. A touch of high-class entertainment music ended the eight-month extravaganza with a lighthearted send-off.
What, When, Where
Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Musicians from Marlboro: Beethoven, Sextet in E-flat Major. Brahms, String Quartet in C Minor. Mozart, Divertimento in D Major. Mary Lynch, oboe. Wei-Ping Chou and Patrick Pridemore, horns. David McCarroll and Itamar Zorman, violins. Hélène Clément, viola. Peter Wiley, cello. Tony Flynt, double bass. May 7, 2015 at the Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Broad and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia. 215-569-8080 or www.pcmsconcerts.org.
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