deseretnews.com | Music Festival is delightful in its diversity

Deseret Morning News, Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Music Festival is delightful in its diversity

By Edward Reichel
Deseret Morning News

PARK CITY MUSIC FESTIVAL, Park City Community Church; through Sunday (943-0169).

PARK CITY — A wonderfully diverse repertoire and an immensely talented group of musicians is invariably a winning combination.

That successful formula has been a trademark of the Park City and Salt Lake City Music Festival — and it's also what sets it apart from the others in the ever swelling sea of summer music festivals in Utah.

Credit is due in large part to co-director Russell Harlow, who is responsible for the programming. He has an uncanny sense for finding the right works for the right musicians. And now, in its 22nd year, the festival is stronger and better than ever.

Sunday's concert in the Park City Community Church was a prime example of Harlow's intelligent and intuitive programming. It offered the sizable audience a delightfully wide-ranging palette of works for a diverse group of instruments. It also included a new arrangement of one of Claude Debussy's most famous pieces, the "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun."

Clarinetist Michael Webster, who has appeared at the Park City festival in the past, has arranged Debussy's "Prelude" for flute, clarinet and piano. It's an effective version that doesn't miss any of the subtleties of the original orchestral score.

For the Debussy, clarinetist Harlow was joined by flutist Laurel Ann Maurer and pianist John Jensen. The three gave a breathtakingly beautiful reading that captured the lushness and sensuality of the music. The languid phrasings of the melodies were evocatively played by Harlow and Maurer, while Jensen supported them with his sensitive and softly toned pianism.

Maurer opened the concert, together with violinist Monte Belknap, violist Leslie Harlow and cellist Scott Ballantyne, in one of Johann Quantz's numerous flute quartets.

Quantz, a transitional figure between the baroque and classical eras, was also a feted flutist who wrote one of the most widely used treatises on flute playing. The four gave a nicely phrased and articulate reading that was elegant and fluid.

Russell Harlow and Ballantyne also played Max Bruch's Eight Pieces for Clarinet, Cello and Piano, op. 83, with pianist Doris Stevenson. Most of the pieces, except for the last, are somber and earnest and filled with lushly romantic outpourings. The three played the work fluidly. Their nuanced reading was richly colored and textured and captured with sensitivity the warmth of the work.

The concert concluded with Alexander Glazunov's String Quintet, in which Leslie Harlow and Ballantyne were joined by violinists Dara Morales and Monte Belknap and cellist Jesus Morales. The five played the work with remarkable musicality that radiantly captured the music's rich romanticism.

All of them are superb chamber musicians, and what was particularly notable in this performance was their incredibly intuitive ensemble play. They were temperamentally well matched and they imbued their cohesive and seamless reading with vitality and electrifying drive.

E-mail: ereichel@desnews.com