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Colorado College music festival joyful mix of familiar, unfamiliar

Marc Shulgold, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 18, 2007 at midnight

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COLORADO SPRINGS - There are numerous joys to be found during Colorado's summer music festival season. Almost as many joys are there are festivals.

One of those pleasures is the opportunity to hear a crazy variety of familiar and unfamiliar repertory. Case in point: Sunday's mixed bag at the Colorado College Summer Music Festival, one of the most consistently satisfying among the state's warm-weather fests.

A packed house in Packard Hall heard two selections by a pair of virtually unknown composers (Franz Doppler and Eric Ewazen) and a virtually unknown work (the Piano Quintet) by Sir Edward Elgar. No offense to those other two guys, but the Elgar proved far and away the afternoon's most significant discovery.

This exciting and involving work was given a powerful, committed reading by pianist William Wolfram and a quartet consisting of Steven Copes (former Colorado Symphony concertmaster) and Stefan Hersh, violins; Phillip Ying, viola and Bion Tsang, cello.

Constructed in three extended movements, this piece from 1918-19 needs to re-enter the chamber repertory - and fast. The glorious slow movement must surely stand alongside the finest of such works among the late romantics. It is Brahmsian in its sweep and intensity, and in its sheer loveliness. Terrific curtain-closer.

Earlier, yet another string quartet teamed with Robert Walters, English horn with the Cleveland Orchestra, in a not-too-modern-sounding Quintet by Ewazen (himself a Cleveland native). Walters and his cohorts - Scott Yoo, Mark Fewer, Virginia Barron and David Ying - seemed to enjoy this pleasant work, which skirted dissonance in favor or warmed-over romanticism. Its Coplandesque slow movement was particularly impressive. This recent work was originally intended for something called the hecklephone, apparently a low-ranging cousin of the English horn.

Yet another novelty came courtesy of the 19th-century composer, Franz Doppler, whose chirpy little piece, L'Oiseau des bois (Birds of the Forest), was given a charming performance by flutist Elizabeth Mann onstage, and by a quartet of student horn players (led by the CSO's Michael Thornton) in the balcony behind the stage. Plenty of trills and quick scales, as the title suggests. Nicely played, but otherwise, nothing special.

In a marked departure from the unexpected, Sunday's program opened with Bach's good ol' Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, featuring most of the above players, a few extra resident musicians and, filling in for the indisposed Frank Shelton at the two-manual harpsichord, Carol Wilson - who conquered the first movement's dazzling cadenza with ease, nailing most of the notes in that nine-zillion-note solo.

The festival continues with chamber and chamber-orchestra programs offering similarly enticing repertory. Definitely worth the drive from Denver. Incidentally, a new performing arts complex under construction across the street will serve as the orchestral home of the festival next summer.



Marc Shulgold is music and dance writer. 303-954-5296 or