Chamber groups and the Orchestra

As we ponder the news that the Philadelphia Orchestra may face bankruptcy, we should remember that it makes important contributions to Philadelphia's music scene, beyond its own concerts. The Orchestra's musicians form the core of some of our most active chamber and new music groups.

For many Orchestra musicians, I suspect, the Orchestra is their day job, but their chamber music work is their first love.

The Philadelphia Chamber Ensemble and 1807 & Friends both draw their members from the Orchestra. Last weekend you could have sampled typical examples of the kind of programs they've presented through histories that now span several decades.

When I first started reviewing, more than 20 years ago, most musicians in the Chamber Ensemble occupied the first and second chairs in their respective sections of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Lately, as those talents have retired, the Ensemble has replaced them with younger musicians. It's currently a good mix of veterans like violinist Yumi Ninomiya Scott and newcomers like Noah Geller, who joined the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2008.

The opener at this program was a rarity: Gian Carlo Menotti's Cantilena and Scherzo for harp and string quartet, with a Chamber Ensemble regular, Orchestra harpist Margaret Csonka Montanaro. Menotti wrote this piece for the Orchestra's former principal harp, the late Marilyn Costello, and it apparently hasn't received much performance time.

I'm not a big Menotti fan, but this piece deserves a better reputation. It's a warm, beautiful work enhanced by a showman's ear for rapid changes in moods and musical elements. The harp plays a supporting role for most of its length, but the harpist gets a long, fascinating, unaccompanied solo toward the end and makes the final statement over fading strings.

Not really that young

The musicians who delivered the most striking performances during the afternoon were Geller and cellist John Koen. Koen signed with the Orchestra in 1990 but I've been listening to him since he was a student at Curtis, so I tend to think of Koen as a younger musician, even though simple arithmetic calculation tells me otherwise.

Koen's big tone and emotional sensitivity played key roles in the Menotti and captured the full range of Brahmsian feeling packed into the Brahms trio for clarinet, cello and piano. Geller played first violin in the Menotti as well as the afternoon's grand finale, Mendelssohn's second string quintet. The first violin dominates the Mendelssohn, and Geller played a star part with the flair of a spirited, technically accomplished violinist who seemed perfectly at ease with the challenges the composer threw at him.

Barber's memorable quartet

The 1807 and Friends program concentrated on two of the standard chamber forms: the string quartet and the quintet for piano and string quartet.

Samuel Barber wrote only one string quartet, but that isolated effort contains one of the most enduring works an American composer has created— the second movement adagio, which became the Adagio for Strings in its orchestra transcription.

The original one-to-a-part quartet version is just as moving as the larger adaptation, and the 1807 resident foursome, the Wister Quartet, gave the adagio the kind of performance it deserves. But the musicians also maintained its position in the quartet's three-movement structure, where it serves as a passage between the more turbulent outer movements.

The quintet for piano and string quartet is the ultimate answer to people who think the chamber music repertoire consists of precious miniatures. The great piano quintets sound just as big and passionate as the great piano concertos; and the finale at this concert— Dohnanyi's C Minor quintet— is one of the grandest of the grand. With Marcantonio Barone at the piano, 1807 and Friends turned it into a non-stop outburst interrupted by a slow movement love song that emphasizes the mellower romantic feelings evoked by the viola and the cello.

The cellist as composer

For their opening item, the Friends turned to a budding composer within their own ranks and presented a new quartet by the Wister's cellist, Lloyd Smith.

Smith's latest opus is a first-class example of a trend that should be encouraged. Many musicians seem to be turning to composition these days, and their work benefits from a performer's impulse to connect with an audience.

In his program notes, Smith associates the first movement with his wilderness hiking trips, and the opening moments capture that feeling with a distinctive airy lightness. The second movement scherzo plays with good-humored effects, like a passage in which the first violin sings through chatter from the other players. The slow movement is a tender evocation of a family gathering, and the final movement ends the quartet with a classic, totally satisfying big finish.

Through it all, Smith displays a musician's understanding of his colleagues and their instruments. All of them receive important moments, and he keeps throwing in unexpected, creative touches.

Smith and the Wister's first violin, Nancy Bean, have both retired from the Orchestra. But they're here because the Orchestra is here. Without the Philadelphia Orchestra, many things wouldn't happen.