The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center presented a unique program featuring wind instruments at Wolf Trap’s Barns on Sunday afternoon. This marks the final season with Wu Han as artistic director, credited with significantly boosting attendance for chamber music at the venue, partly due to CMS’s engaging performances.
This concert followed a familiar structure, leading with the rarely performed Sextet for Winds and Piano by Francis Poulenc, and preceded by lesser-known pieces showcasing the same instrument types. Horn player Radek Baborák and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott opened with an elegant interpretation of Reinhold Glière’s Four Pieces for Horn and Piano. These late Romantic pieces from 1908 showcased Baborák’s control and refined tone, particularly in the Valse triste, which featured a delicate horn cadenza.
Clarinetist David Shifrin and bassoonist Marc Goldberg then performed Poulenc’s eccentric Sonata for Clarinet and Bassoon, composed in 1922. The piece balanced playful rhythms with wide leaps, and both musicians skillfully navigated its diverse ranges, especially in the rhythmically dynamic third movement.
A standout performance followed with Bohuslav Martinů’s Sonata for Flute and Piano, composed in 1945 while Martinů was in Cape Cod. McDermott’s graceful piano lines supported flutist Adam Walker, who exhibited exceptional technical skill, especially in the slow movement’s smooth tonal transitions and in the third movement’s lively, whippoorwill-inspired theme.
Following the post-intermission Q&A, Beethoven’s Duo No. 3 for Clarinet and Bassoon was played by Shifrin and Goldberg, though it was less substantial than the program’s other pieces. Oboist James Austin Smith then joined for Carl Reinecke’s Trio for Oboe, Horn, and Piano, an 1887 work revealing Reinecke’s conductor background, with Smith and Baborák exchanging melodic themes in the first and third movements.
The highlight of the concert was Poulenc’s Sextet for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn, and Piano, where all six musicians displayed a perfect balance of virtuosity and mutual support. This lively piece, revised in 1939, draws on circus music and jazz influences from 1930s Paris. Notable moments included Goldberg’s calming bassoon cadenza in the first movement and a vibrant Finale in the style of Offenbach, concluding an exhilarating concert.
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