Delius’ music has its glories, along with some major flaws. Both can be heard in the Violin Sonata No. 2, his most successful essay in the genre. (It has also been transcribed for viola and piano.) It is a scant 10 minutes long, in two movements played without pause, so that the short, lively second movement seems little more than a coda to the normal-size first one.

The piece is pleasant, in a nostalgic, semi-impressionistic manner that Percy Grainger dubbed “chordist” music. Delius toys with highly chromatic harmony, but seems too concerned with momentary events while neglecting the big picture. As a result, the formal structure is weak and often unclear. On Saturday, for instance, no one recognized that the sonata had ended until Edelberg waved his violin bow in the air and took a bow — to silence. Then we got it, and applauded.

Elgar’s Piano Quintet stems from the last great flowering of his career. When his wife died in 1920, he gave up on major compositions, cranking out a lot of little things instead — such as incidental music and house music for amateurs or beginners — in the hope of relieving his tight financial situation. The sole exception was his unfinished Third Symphony, commissioned by the BBC. In a sense, the quintet was Elgar’s last musical testament.

As befits such a milestone, the quintet is large and mostly serious-minded. The first movement has a mysterious Introduction leading to a grim Allegro, which Elgar described as the dance of “sad, dispossessed trees.” That is followed by a lovely slow movement in Romanza style. The last movement again opens with a slow introduction, glancing over its shoulder at the earlier movements, before a merry finale breaks out.

Curiously, there are little waltzlike detours during the first movement, which are suggestive of Viennese salon music. Whether this was comic relief or a dig at England’s World War I enemies, I cannot say. Yet the whole of the final movement suffers from some forced writing, notably shallow and frequent sequences that run in place, and some fugal bits that sound no more than academic banter. The first two movements present top-drawer music, and those are what make the quintet a valuable listening experience.

Schumann’s Piano Quintet, on the other hand, is universally recognized as one of the composer’s finest achievements. Indeed, some consider it the finest quintet in all of chamber music, period. It’s a work of sheer brilliance and joyful, marchlike bravura. All four movements hint at festive marches, even the second movement processional, in a minor key.

The piece is also great fun to play, as Saturday’s virtuoso group clearly underlined. You could see, as well as hear, the musicians’ enthusiasm as they performed the work. Parr had the piano lid wide open, but he played with enough sensitivity to hold the monster at bay, dynamically speaking. The audience reaction at the end was nearly volcanic, as indeed this work and this performance deserved. But then, all three performances were splendid, and even the flawed works were interesting.

(Heuwell Tircuit is a composer, performer, and writer who was chief writer for Gramophone Japan and for 21 years a music reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle. He wrote previously for Chicago's American and the Asahi Evening News.)

©2007 Heuwell Tircuit, all rights reserved