Pianists were stars of the evenings at Seattle Chamber Music Summer Festival

Pianists are Gypsies among musicians — they must wander from one concert hall to the next, playing instruments never truly their own.

Fortunately, the Steinway that anchors the Seattle Chamber Music Summer Festival is a fine beast, one with enough power to fill the concert hall and enough responsiveness to express each player's idiosyncratic style.

And, boy, were the three pianists at last Wednesday night's concert different indeed.

In the first piece of the evening, Alexander von Zemlinsky's hauntingly pretty Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano in D minor, pianist Anna Polonsky's playing was well-articulated, sonorous and lush. During one particularly impressive moment (of many) in the second movement, she led the clarinet (a brilliant Frank Kowalsky) and cello (Robert deMaine, masterfully filling in for Ronald Thomas) in a careful descent to the lower registers before tracing a glistening path back into the light. Utter delight.

Polonsky could have easily dominated the concluding Allegro with its repetitive chords, but instead maintained a lovely balance with her peers, bringing an intensity of joy to this rollicking movement.

In the Beethoven Quintet for Piano, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon and Horn in E-flat Major, Op. 16, pianist Adam Neiman played the piano as a ruffled adornment to the stately deliberations of the wind instruments (Nathan Hughes, oboe; Sean Osborn, clarinet; Seth Krimsky, bassoon; Jeffrey Fair, horn).

The entire second movement, in fact, sounded like one big trill, which — when combined with some heavy pedalling — produced some rather sticky-sweet sensations. The total effect might have been hopelessly foppish had Krimsky's bassoon not provided some much-needed gravitas.

Which brings us to Jeremy Denk. Such stamina! Such range! The man has played piano on every concert since opening night, and Wednesday's performance concluded his festival run.

I will miss his sure-handed power, his even-keeled interpretive style. He's as dependable as Old Faithful at delivering a great show.

The Cesár Franck Quintet for Piano and Strings was the ideal vehicle for his strengths: This dynamo of a piece offers spectacular dramatic shifts, from the eerie gauziness of the second movement to the thunderous surges of the third.

Denk brought all his characteristic firepower to bear on this piece and was — passionately aided by Lily Francis and Jun Iwasaki on violin, Richard O'Neill on viola, and Toby Saks on cello — completely blew it out of the water. A fine way to end a most impressive festival run.

On tonight's concert Anna Polonsky will play Brahms' Variations on a Theme by Schumann with pianist Orion Weiss. Adam Neiman will accompany violinists Jun Iwasaki and Lily Francis, violist Richard O'Neill, and cellist Robert deMaine on Sergei Taneyev's Quintet for Piano and Strings in G minor.

Polonsky and Neiman will also perform on Monday July 28's concert in a program of Chopin, Franck and Schumann with various other artists.

Sumi Hahn: sumi@bewodo.org