MUSIC REVIEW : Pacific Festival Opens at Cal State L.A.

With one, possibly two exceptions, each of the six works on Thursday’s opening concert of the Pacific Contemporary Music Festival at Cal State L.A. relied heavily--too heavily--on one musical element: timbre.

In his Quintet, Donald Erb deserves high marks for skillfully combining the instrumental timbres of violin, cello, flute, clarinet and piano/synthesizer. He also asks the players to hum, pluck the piano strings, play a pitch pipe and rub water-filled glasses. Alas, that is not enough to sustain a piece having so little dramatic contrast.

But the haunting colors and ethereal harmonies of the second of Peter Terry’s “Three: Songs of Light,” for string trio held the listener spellbound. It is hard to believe that the same composer penned the busy, academic-sounding and utterly characterless flanking movements.

Kyung-sun Suh’s “Pentastich,” handsomely played by violinist David Stenske, consists of five short movements that effectively capitalize on a plethora of playing techniques to produce a wealth of color. The movements utilize different motivic material, but little character contrast distinguishes them.

In Jin Hi Kim’s “Tchong” for solo flute, an ever-increasing level of dramatic intensity gives the music a palpable sense of direction. Evoking the sound of a traditional bamboo flute, Kim exploits the modern instrument (including alto flute) to generate a piece defined largely by color and dynamics. Though played with impressive skill and intense determination by Dorothy Stone, the often scrannel sounds irritated more than they fascinated.

In Frank Campo’s “Quintetto Vincentino” for violin, viola, cello, clarinet and piano, the proportions seem correct and the transitions between the many episodes are certainly smooth, but the work lacks a sense of drama.

William Kraft’s “Quartet for the Love of Time” for violin, cello, clarinet and piano, showed the least reliance on timbre. Following the inert first movement, a rhythmically charged Allegro contrasted effectively, although the movement’s reappearing jazzy ostinato did after a spell grow tiresome.

The members of the California E.A.R. Unit--Stenske, Stone, and violinist Robin Lorentz, violist Marlow Fischer, cellist Erika Duke, clarinetist James Rohrig and pianist Lorna Edler delivered universally polished, committed readings.