BEETHOVEN FESTIVAL PARK CITY SPRING CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL, All Saints Episcopal Church, Salt Lake City, March 13

The Beethoven Festival Park City presents concerts four times each year. In the spring the festival collaborates with the music department at Utah Valley University in a series of concerts that features several of the school’s music faculty along with a number of musicians from the festival’s returning artist roster.

On Friday in Salt Lake City’s All Saints Episcopal Church, the closing concert of the three-concert spring festival offered the audience a well chosen program that bookended Fratres, a short work by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, with two works by Mozart, the Flute Quartet in D major, K. 285, and the Clarinet Quintet in A major, K. 581.

The original version of Fratres was written in 1977, but for this concert it was presented in a version for guitar and violin arranged by guitarist Jon Yerby, who played it together with violinist Donna Fairbanks.

The piece is kaleidoscopic, with a vehement opening for solo violin, which later returns, alternating with lyrical and more fluid passages. These dramatic shifts were captured vividly in the duo’s reading. They brought cohesiveness to the piece and their playing was finely crafted and well articulated and expressed.

Not too many years separate the two Mozart works, but stylistically they are miles apart. The D major Quartet, from the composer’s Salzburg years, relies on its infectious charm for its effect rather than any deep perusal of the thematic material. The Clarinet Quintet, on the other hand, written in 1789, is expansive, allowing Mozart to treat the themes symphonically. And there is a subtly crafted and detailed interweaving of the parts not found in the earlier work.

Flutist Mary Richards, joined by Fairbanks, violist Paula Cho and cellist Cheung Chau, gave a gorgeously expressed account of the Flute Quartet. Their playing was supple which allowed them to bring out the lovely lyricism that flows through the three movements. The slow movement in particular, with its plaintive melody, was played with eloquence and feeling.

The Clarinet Quintet was given a splendid reading by festival co-founder and clarinetist Russell Harlow, together with violinists Blanka Bednarz and Cynthia Richards, violist Cho and cellist Chau. The quintet is a signature work at the Beethoven Festival, and Harlow has made it his own.And once again he gave another solid and well expressed account. In fact the five players balanced each other wonderfully; they are like minded musicians who meshed as an ensemble. They brought depth and feeling and emphasized the lyricism inherent in each of the four movements in their finely constructed and seamlessly expressed interpretation.