San Francisco Classical Voice

During intermission at Friday's concert at San Francisco's Old First Church, a small crowd gathered onstage to inspect the featured fortepiano. Perhaps curiosity about the craftsmanship and sound of the period instruments is what drew so many people to this concert. But what lingered in memory was what fortepianist John Khouri and the Augarten Quartet accomplished musically — as much in spite of their instruments as because of them.

Emblematic of the evening was the performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's Sonata in F Major for horn and piano. At first the point of fascination seemed to be the relative ease with which Paul Avril controlled the temperamental natural horn. The coiled brass instrument has no keys (Avril played a 1998 American-made copy of an 1828 French model), so each note is an intricate feat of embouchure and bell-hand coordination. Fortunately, Beethoven writes a relatively unadventurous line for the horn: Khouri carried the burden of the piece with his fortepiano.

Nonetheless, Avril's athletic feat was also surprisingly beguiling. A few excusably squirrelly moments aside, Avril played as if he were a singing — seeking and finding the pitches with accuracy and gentleness, creating shape and nuance where a more technically advanced instrument might have invited a plainer performance.

Similarly surprising virtues of period performance were evident in the other three works, each a masterful example of Classical wind music: the "Kegelstatt" Trio for clarinet, viola, and piano by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and two quintets for piano, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn, by Mozart and Beethoven, respectively. One quintet shows the 28-year-old Mozart near the peak of his powers. The other quintet shows Beethoven at nearly the same age, still groping for a suitable combination of bold symphonic power and arietta-like grace. (Soon Beethoven would hit his stride with his first string quartets.)

Usually, comparison of these seminal works for piano and winds favors Mozart's mature ease over Beethoven's early gawkiness. And at first it seemed that the distinctive sound and balances created by the period instruments would reinforce this judgment. The softer-grained tones of the winds predominated without overwhelming the fortepiano, creating a warm yet subdued tone that lent depth to Mozart's abundantly tuneful and inventive piece. Joining Khouri and Avril were Gonzalo X. Ruiz, who played a modern copy of a 1770s German oboe; David Barnett, who played a clarinet from about 1800; and Daniel Deitch, who used a bassoon of similar vintage.

With different materials and bore sizes than their modern counterparts, these instruments don't project with ease. Combined with the solid but demure sound of the fortepiano, however, the limited dynamic ranges of all the instruments were perfectly matched. Only the bassoon seemed occasionally lost in the sonic shuffle, more because it blended so well with the horn and clarinet than for any lack of volume.

In the Beethoven, however, the group lost no time in portraying a different and even more striking sensibility. Khouri turned up the tension a notch with some daring distortions of the rhythmic pulse and an enthusiastic rendering of Beethoven's spiky defiance. The wind group confidently shaped the accents and hammering repetitions that drive the opening Grave and Allegro. Without stressing their sound, the group found a way to project Beethoven's shocking contrasts. And they fit both light and shade, power and delicacy, within a surprisingly lyrical, naturally breathing flow.

Perhaps the uncommon blend of instruments, so hard to achieve on modern instruments, made this possible. But no, this was much more than a case of carefully gauged authenticity of tone. Melody migrated from oboe to clarinet and back with a seamless certainty because dynamics and tempi were perfectly — almost miraculously — conceived. The musicians breathed life and conviction into a piece that in less skilled hands can meander, and they did it with good sense of phrase and pulse.

In light of this rare achievement, it may be a bit churlish to note how often intonation went awry, most notably in the clarinet. There was little reason to complain, however. A 200-year-old instrument may not be up to the technical standards of today's instruments, but somehow it seemed to impart accumulated generations worth of musical wisdom on Friday.

(Jeff Rosenfeld is an oboist with the Kensington Symphony, West County Winds, and Pacific Wind Ensemble. He is a freelance science journalist and author of the recent book, Eye of the Storm: Inside the World's Deadliest Hurricanes, Tornadoes, and Blizzards.)

©2000 Jeff Rosenfeld, all rights reserved