San Francisco Classical Voice

In this reduced instrumentation, Stravinsky's score loses some of its abrasively jazzy qualities, but it has more soul. Wisely, the trio of Ayano Ninomiya, Anthony McGill, and Alain Planes did not try to make up for the lack of brass and percussion by playing more aggressively, as some do. McGill's dulcet clarinet traded sass for subtlety and melted into Planes's strong piano pulse. They left plenty of room for Ninomiya's violin to characterize the hero who bartered with the Devil and ultimately was clever enough to fool the master trickster himself. Her silvery, lithe tone was cunning and seductive in "The Soldier's Violin." She took the repetitive figures and made them mesmerizingly pliant as her instrument slithered and writhed, purred and cajoled the Devil into a bad deal. The biggest movement — "Tango-Waltz-Ragtime" — had plenty of momentum and bounce, and the conclusion, "The Devil's Dance," was a hair-raising whirlwind in which all three performers played with extraordinary zest, yet never stridently. This was a most characterful and virtuosic L'Histoire — exemplary musical storytelling.

St. John's absence also opened the way for veteran Marlboro participant Ida Levin to fill in as the first violin for Franz Schubert's D major String Quartet. Levin, Ninomiya, violist Melissa Reardon, and cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach brought out the effervescent energy of this early work. The 17-year-old Schubert overstays his welcome a bit in the lengthy first movement, but the melodies are natural and inspired, which is just the way the quartet played them on Saturday. The performance was full of drive and vigorous sonority — much of it cleansed of vibrato — rather than precious or quaint. I could have stood for more clarity in the sound — especially more cello and second violin, the backstage voices that tended to blur in the big sanctuary's warm, generous acoustic.

If anything on the program was quaint or distended, it was not the youthful Schubert quartet but the proudly democratic Arnold Schoenberg's, the Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte. A setting of text by Lord Byron, this melodrama had its day as an answer to the evils of fascism. But melodrama is, well, too melodramatic for contemporary ears — like listening to embarrassingly patriotic propaganda films from the 40s. On the other hand, maybe this wasn't such a bad programming choice. Patriotism and democracy are definitely "in" these days, and Schoenberg's music, harmonically relatively comfortable and rhythmically slashing and unsettling, offers a turbulent and nervous accompaniment for piano and string quartet. Schoenberg indulges in some obvious tone-painting, but hardly gilds the lily as badly as a wartime Hollywood newsreel of that age. I rather like this outdated score, actually, and the political aptness of a paean to selfless, principled leadership was apparent in Friday's concert. Planes and his colleagues (the same quartet as in the Schubert) were not as incisive as they could have been, but they were energetic, and Reardon and Gerlach contributed some memorable solo lines.

Most importantly, the mellifluous baritone Randall Scarlata recited Byron's ode with an appropriately bitter sarcasm. He wasn't stentorian, condemning the abdicating dictator with holy moral force as Mack Harrell did long ago in this work. Rather Scarlata unleashed a poet's venomous disappointment, scorning the greed of the powerful with the white, cool coloring of words like "A strict accountant of his beads" and souring the aftertaste of "Are all thy playthings snatch'd away?"

The quartet returned one more time, with Ninomiya and Levin switching chairs, to join McGill in Mozart's Quintet for Clarinet and Strings. McGill played brilliantly. The first movement may have been a shade fast, but this newly appointed principal of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra settled quickly into the flow. The famous "Larghetto" was exquisite in its simple cantabile phrasing, and it got even better on the repeat when McGill added some breathtaking dynamic shading. His sound, throughout, was unstressed and full, projecting easily the full-throated richness and gentle glow of the dark wood instrument. The final set of variations featured deftly delicate tonguing and elegant scales played against Ninomiya's sweetly noble serenading. I can imagine McGill's reading of this work changing over time, adding more tease and drama, but rarely has the Mozart sounded so forthright and disarming.

During the Mozart, I couldn't help but think back to some of those old Marlboro records documented legends like Alexander Schneider, Marcel Moyse, and Pablo Casals collaborating with whiz-kids who went on to become revered principals in America's best orchestras. We heard them way back when thanks to Marlboro. Someday we'll be telling people we heard McGill, Ninomiya, and their Marlboro colleagues way back in '04, thanks to Cal Performances.