DATE: Sunday, May 11, 1997                  TAG: 9705110032

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Music Review 

SOURCE: BY LEE TEPLY, CORRESPONDENT 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   55 lines

HAILSTORK, BRAHMS COOK UP A LUNCHTIME TREAT

At the closing concert of the Lunchtime Chamber Music Series, part of the Virginia Waterfront International Arts Festival, a new composition by Adolphus Hailstork was juxtaposed with a classic by Johannes Brahms.

The audience in the theater of the Chrysler Museum of Art found both performances worthy of a standing ovation.

Hailstork's ``Sanctum'' for viola and piano, composed in 1995, received its world premiere on this occasion. Violist Beverly Baker, for whom the work was written, was accompanied by Charles Woodward.

Baker moved through the music's wide range with ease, projecting a deep, rich tone whose warmth suited the music.

The few moments of quicker, more technical figuration were no problem. The big melodic lines that fill the piece were shaped with a care and tenderness that comes only from within. Given this music by the composer, she has made it hers.

Woodward's sensitive accompaniment supported the viola with gentle patterns. Occasionally he stepped forward, fitting more important material for the piano into the picture.

According to Hailstork, the peace to which the title refers is that found in the quiet of a huge cathedral. This inspiration led him to write lines that sounded like chant - sometimes the Gregorian chant of the Catholic church, sometimes the Middle Eastern liturgical melodies of the temple or mosque.

Like the spacious buildings that house those religions, his music had a sense of both serenity and familiarity. It presented a moment of calm and reassurance, in which one could escape from the pressures of the outside world.

Pianist Lydia Artymiw joined the Miami String Quartet for Brahms' Piano Quintet in F minor. Mostly, they chose to play with a somewhat brooding nostalgia, thoroughly enjoying every moment of the masterful score.

One could question their generally slow tempos, and indeed their frequent changes of tempo. But Brahms' tempo markings are sufficiently ambiguous to allow this. Where the first movement is marked ``Allegro non troppo'' (not too fast), the group sometimes moved just a little too slowly to hold the big structure together.

Here, and in the equally vague tempo marking of the second movement, the emphasis was on the beauty of the details, each lovingly sculptured, rather than on the coherence of the entire work. An advantage of this approach was that, when the big moments with great forward motion arrived, they had tremendous power.

Seated a little far from the audience, the quintet had some balance problems. The sound of the second violin and cello was sometimes hidden between that of the other two strings, who were closer to the audience, and that of the piano.

But this slight problem did not distort the clarity of the contrapuntal dialogue between instruments. And it was this dialogue, which the players so enjoyed, that held the attention of the appreciative audience.

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