When a group made up of principals from the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra comes to town, expectations are naturally high. They have credentials, and you want to see how high they set the bar. You want to witness excellence.
Just to quickly point out the connection: 20 per cent of the LA Philharmonic Wind Quintet is Australian – indeed Adelaidean. Andrew Bain went to Brighton Secondary School, studied at the Elder Conservatorium of Music, and played in the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra before spreading his wings and making it into the Los Angeles Philharmonic as principal horn in 2011.
He returns now and then, most recently in August 2022 to play Paul Dean’s Horn Concerto with the ASO.
LA Philharmonic Wind Quintet began its well-chosen program with the Wind Quintet No. 1 by Jean Françaix. Full of colourful chatter, this work shows the composer in typically whimsical mood, and the wind quintet medium to maximal advantage: rather than blending the five instruments, each stands out as distinctly as possible. Sometimes it gets close to sounding like a barnyard.
This performance was more dignified than comical, and one was glad of that to begin with. Taken too far, this piece can rapidly descend into frivolity. Notes were given their full length, phrases nicely rounded, and tempos not unduly pushed – nothing was exaggerated.
Gleam and virtuosic prowess were all apparent. In places such as the tricky Presto, Françaix seems to want to deliberately unseat the players: “I did my best to be nasty,” he remarked. Not that he succeeded here. This group’s timing was fastidious and tone production completely controlled, even to the point where they were taking some of the fun out of it. But all was forgiven in the final movement’s blast from horn and cute, cheeky ending.
The rest of this program left the listener in a mixture of awe and admiration.
Ross Edwards’ Incantations comes up wonderfully when played at the LA Philharmonic Wind Quintet’s standard. It’s a greater piece than one might have realised. Shrouded in mystery to begin with, it bursts ebulliently into life with tippy rhythms and shrill birdcalls that catch the ear. With details correctly and reassuringly observed, nothing felt overdone.
That might be a lesson for other groups: rather than forcing matters, aiming purely for the most exemplary playing allows the music to reveal itself.
The same went for selections from Bernstein’s West Side Story, arranged by Richard Price. Stonking fun it is, but so satisfying on all fronts when played with these musicians’ expertise. Timing becomes a beautiful thing when witnessed at their level.
The LA Philharmonic Wind Quintet performs in the UKARIA concert hall.
Being thoroughly seasoned orchestral players, they are not given to ostentation when solos come along. Tzigane, by the contemporary American composer and flautist Valerie Coleman, is another extrovert piece in which the spotlight falls on one player at a time.
And here’s the wonderful thing: LA Philharmonic Wind Quintet readily step outside the “symphonic” mode, which forbids anything sticking out above a blended unity, whenever solo spots appear. In Tzigane, there were moments for each player to strut their stuff. Once done, they instantaneously merged back into the ensemble. It was as if each player had a double.
An acknowledged masterpiece of the repertoire, Carl Nielsen’s Wind Quintet, Op. 43, had the most substance in this program. Inspired and generously amiable, its solution to writing for the wind quintet medium is different again. Nielsen divides the ensemble into pairs and trios for conversational effect, and the individuality of each instrument is gradually revealed.
Bain explained at the start that Nielsen wrote this quintet with five musician friends in mind, expressing their personalities through their instruments. One could certainly hear this, most of all in the disparate voices that surface in the third movement’s theme and variations.
Without trying to be different, each contribution in this performance was thoughtful and thoroughly characterful – and impeccably delivered. The LA Philharmonic Wind Quintet’s flautist, Denis Bouriakov, has to be one of the most unflustered flautists on the planet, and Bain is superlatively skilled in the full, firm tone he produces on horn. All of them are marvellous players and surgical masters: expressive when called to be, but never otherwise drawing attention to themselves.
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An exceedingly funny duet between bassoon and clarinet erupts halfway through this last movement, and this brought chuckles from the audience.
The only trouble in this concert was excessive moisture build-up in Bain’s instrument. He had to repeatedly empty his French horn between movements and pieces. Blame that on the weather.
LA Philharmonic Wind Quintet are consummate musicians and a great joy to hear. One could not imagine finer playing.
LA Philharmonic Wind Quintet performed at UKARIA Cultural Centre on September 29. Upcoming concerts at UKARIA include a performance by The Bowerbird Collective on October 5 as part of the Nature Festival, and the venue’s flagship UKARIA 24 weekend (October 18-20) curated by Olli Mustonen.
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