San Francisco Classical Voice

Martinu's 1947 Three Madrigals for violin and viola came first, played by violinist Felicia Moye and violist Benjamin Simon. They are fascinating but somewhat sprawly pieces, full of playful tit-for-tat and unexpected byways that lead home only circuitously and at length. The two possible approaches are to try to find some sort of overarching plan to the music (or at least simulate one), or to say "to hell with it" and just enjoy it moment-to-moment. Moye and Simon seemed to me a little too intent on keeping a trajectory to have all the fun that could be had with Martinu's interlocking textures, a little too anxious about the large-scale shape to mess about enough with the small-scale interactions between the parts. But it was a fine performance, meticulously balanced and tuned and played with a deft touch by both. Simon moves around the viola with ease, and articulates unusually well with the bow; and Moye's slightly more heavily vibrated sound nonetheless blended nicely. She was not always technically at ease — the high-flying end of the first movement and the tremolandi (alternations of notes under a slur, basically trills with a wider interval between the two pitches) in the second and third had their uncomfortable moments. But the odd, enigmatic joy of the music was there, and the finale's ending was a triumph.

Later the two were joined by cellist Martin Osten for Dohnányi's Op. 10 Serenade for string trio. This is a short but brilliant five-movement piece, opening with a March just like many a Mozart occasional piece, and closing with a brilliant finale that reprises bits of the first movement in its course. In between are two (quite different, but both very beautiful) slow movements and, in the center, a wickedly chromatic fugal scherzo that doubtless causes half the people who start to read innocently through the piece to give up in despair.

Osten proved a terrific fit for his colleagues here; all three have the same sort of dense and focused tone, and the combined sound was startlingly solid and true. Simon shone especially in the second movement's musing opening solo, and in the scherzo, where I have to say that he slightly out-nimbled his colleagues. But the real ensemble achievement was the opening of the fourth-movement variations, mysterious and dark.

Between the two string-only works, Osten and pianist Mack McCray played the cello version of Schumann's Op. 73 Fantasiestücke. These were originally written for clarinet, though Schumann provided alternate string versions as was common at the time. (I'd dispute the anonymous program note's claim that "today the work is almost always heard in the version for cello." If it is almost always recorded that way, it might have something to do with the relative numbers of celebrity cellists and celebrity clarinetists.) Osten's playing here was quite beautiful, with a fine legato line in the first two movements and a grand swing and rush of energy in the third. But one thing persistently puzzled me: he made a lovely, rich, dense sound low on the A string, but when he had to go into the upper regions (say, C above middle C, or the D just over that), while the tone quality was just as fine, the volume dropped. The place that ought to have been the peak of a phrase was inexplicably a little quieter than the music leading up to the peak, and in a way that didn't suggest a deliberate effect. McCray was an attentive partner, bringing out the interiors of Schumann's textures with richly varied tone.

After that first half, the affectionate Dvorák Op. 87 on the second was no surprise. It is, in fact, the sort of piece that only gets played affectionately (in general, you either know it and love it, or haven't ever heard it); but the Zephyr Festival players were clearly in their shared element, together at last on the program. The string blend I had noticed in the Dohnányi was even better here, but the shared sense of phrasing was better yet, and Osten's account of the yearning cello solo of the second movement was magnificent. McCray, not immaculate note-wise but full of color and zest, underpinned a performance that deserved the enthusiastic applause it got.