WESTMINSTER WINDS, Vieve Gore Concert Hall, Westminster College, Jan. 14
The woodwind players of the Utah Symphony don’t often get an opportunity to play together as a chamber ensemble. Monday, however, three members of this group played a rare chamber music concert. Principal bassoonist Lori Wike, clarinetist Lee Livengood and hornist Ron Beitel joined forces with flutist Sally Humphreys and oboist Susan Swidnicki for a wonderfully diverse program that included works by three 20th century French composers.
Humphreys and Swidnicki frequently sub with the Utah Symphony, and all five are on the faculty at Westminster College. This was a gathering of musical colleagues, and their playing showed they are accustomed to performing together. Their collaboration displayed a finely honed sense of ensemble playing and they meshed as a group. Their playing was cleanly articulated and defined and wonderfully nuanced and balanced.
The quintet opened the concert with Darius Milhaud’s delightful La cheminée du Roi René, a captivating multi-movement work that fully captured the character of 15th century France, the time when King René lived. The players underscored the mood of a past era that Milhaud created with their sensitive and lyrical playing.
Between the Milhaud and Francis Poulenc’s Sextet for Piano and Winds, that closed the concert, there were three works that spotlighted three of the quintet’s members.
First, Wike returned onstage with pianist Karlyn Bond to play American composer Ray Luke’s two-movement Contrasts.
The piece gives the bassoonist the chance to present her lyrical side and Wike delivered on that account. She brought finely crafted expressiveness to her playing that allowed her instrument to sing. Bond offered nicely inflected accompaniment that put the bassoon in the forefront and never overwhelmed it.
After Contrasts, Beitel and Bond teamed up for Paul Dukas’ attractive Villanelle, another charmingly lyrical piece that Beitel played with beautifully phrased expressiveness.
The last of these short works was Paul Hindemith’s Eight Pieces for solo flute. These are fairly brief vignette-like movements that Humphreys played with seamless expressiveness that brought out the lyricism of each.
Bond and the quintet closed out the program with a fabulous account of Poulenc’s sextet. The work is masterfully written and blends the piano and five winds wonderfully. The six colleagues played with sensitivity and thoughtfulness and brought out the lyricism of the music with eloquently crafted phrasings. It was a lucid and exceptionally thoughtful interpretation.