Elgar Quintet springs to elegant life

Who would have thought the Elgar Piano Quintet could sound this good?

When the Elgar was programmed for this week's Seattle Chamber Music Society Summer Festival at Lakeside, many festival fans thought it was time to give that well-worn quintet a longer rest after its last outing in 2006. Few in Monday night's audience, however, would continue to think so after the dynamic, riveting performance that buffed and polished the Elgar into something quite elegant.

The players were well capable of this kind of polishing. With a strong lead from violinist Joseph Lin, and equally powerful playing from Erin Keefe (violin), Richard O'Neill (viola), Amos Yang (cello) and Alon Goldstein (piano), the Elgar bounded ahead on a relentless wave of energy. The performance united intensity and taste, with a pliant, flexible tempo that made for a strongly shaped reading of the score.

Each of the players had several turns in the spotlight. Yang's passionate cello was a reminder of what we'll all be missing when this Seattle Symphony cellist moves south to the San Francisco Symphony next season: what a loss!

The rest of the concert was a bit more uneven, though there was much to praise. The opener, Wieniawski's "Original Theme with Variations for Violin and Piano" (Op. 16), brought together violinist Daniela Shtereva with pianist Andrew Armstrong in a reading that was close to mastery, but not quite there yet. A work of this modest musical merit can only succeed if played with utterly dazzling finesse, and there were enough inaccuracies and near-misses in Shtereva's virtuoso lines that this goal wasn't achieved.

Robert deMaine, a very fine cellist, ran afoul of some of the many difficulties in Schubert's notoriously tricky "Arpeggione" Sonata. His beautiful tone made for many lovely moments, but a lot of the notes (and some interpretive issues) weren't quite where they should be. This great sonata blossoms only after years of deep thought and hard work.

Melinda Bargreen: mbargreen@seattletimes.com