WEEKEND REVIEWS : L.A. Philharmonic Institute Serves Up a Chamber Program

For the penultimate event in its 1991 summer schedule, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute presented a chamber-music evening in Schoenberg Hall Auditorium in Westwood that brought together four levels of Institute participants, from student players to artistic director, and including members of the staff and faculty.

The unstated message Friday night at UCLA: In a community of musicians, only talent and achievement count. On the stage, equality of opportunity is a given.

On this occasion, an additional message came through: Sometimes, weird programming results when disparate performing elements appear together.

This agenda offered student performances of Bartok’s “Contrasts,” and Villa-Lobos’ “Bachianas Brasileiras” No. 1, but began with solo pieces for cello, played by Lynn Harrell, artistic director of the summer school, and ended with Ravel’s “Chansons Madecasses,” with faculty soprano Elise Ross the glamorous vocalist.

All the performances had energy, but the concerted ones lacked complete authority, as well as deep polish and integrated detailing.

Ross offered intensity of expression without clarifying either the texts or the linear thrust of Ravel’s still-exotic songs; in sound, she offered little variety. She was assisted by flutist Mary Boodell, cellist Harrell and pianist Grant Gershon.

Andrew Lamy (clarinet), Chan Ho Yun (violin) and Joanne Pearce (piano) were the virtuosic trio in “Contrasts.”

Eight Institute cellists undertook the grueling tests in Villa-Lobos’ exposing “Bachianas.” The work offers so many hurdles, as well as built-in sand-traps, their modest triumph over it had to be cause for admiration.

What should have been last, instead of first, on this farewell-weekend program, were Harrell’s poignant and resplendent performances of three transcriptions for cello and piano: Schubert’s “An die Musik” and “Nacht und Traume,” and Schumann’s “Traumerei.” For this group, Joanne Pearce was at the piano.