FESTIVAL ‘ 90 : MUSIC REVIEW : OPEN FESTIVAL : Pacifica Players at Autry Museum

After an uneventful first half, which mostly failed to involve the listener, a woodwind quintet from Pacifica Chamber Players came to life, in an Open Festival concert at the Gene Autry Museum in Griffith Park.

This apparently ad-hoc ensemble, whose members are Heather Lockwood (flute), Cheryl Foster (oboe), Frank Silva (clarinet), Edward Treuenfels (horn) and Charles Fernandez (bassoon), thereafter held its audience deftly, with strong--if sometimes overstrident and usually overloud--performances.

Clearly, the quality of the works--by Ingolf Dahl, Phyllis Addison, Dean Wheelock and quintet members Fernandez and Silva--on this second half had a lot to do with the players’ attentiveness, and with their audience’s pleasure.

But a high energy level was the catalyst for that pleasure. Engaging music sounds engaging only when performers take the trouble to project.

What was most cherishable on this eclectic, mostly 20th-Century program Sunday night turned out to be Ingolf Dahl’s brilliant “Allegro and Arioso” from 1942, a piece still fresh-sounding, witty and poignant. Coming immediately after intermission, it signaled the fact that the five performers had finally warmed up.

Addison’s skillful and colorful “The Room,” a series of emotionally resonant character-pieces, and Wheelock’s jaunty “Rondo,” also held our interest effortlessly. Fernandez’s three “Songs From a Child’s Point of View,” handsomely sung by soprano Vanessa Vandergriff, proved charming but innocuous. Silva’s brief, jazzy “Solar Blew” closed the program in a burst of energy.

The low-key first half had been devoted to quintets by Franz Danzi and Irving Fine (an optimistic work from 1948) and shorter, more recent items by Jonathan Sacks and William Goldstein, worthy pieces all, but offered in passive, rather than vigorous, readings.