Chamber music concerts off to extraordinary start

The Spoleto Festival USA's Bank of America Chamber Music opening concert proved to be a thoroughly satisfying afternoon christening, giving the rejuvenated Memminger Auditorium a profound sense of new beginnings.

Bathing the almost-unrecognizable space with waves of lush sound, the ever-extraordinary musicians played, with their ever-extraordinary skills, 75 minutes worth of music for the appreciative audience.

Icon, legend, inimitable host and pianist Charles Wadsworth is back, so say "hallelujah." Geoff Nuttall, first violinist of the returning St. Lawrence String Quartet, will now serve as associate artistic director, so say "hallelujah" again.

Brilliant flutist Tara Helen O'Connor staged a sparkling reappearance paired with Wads- worth in Francis Poulenc's "Sonata for Flute and Piano." Earlier in his career, Wadsworth played this lively piece "faster and with more pedal," based on the advice of Poulenc himself. Stay around long enough and these connections abound.

Lyric tenor Paul Groves established himself as a newly consecrated member of this elite society with his powerful and dramatic interpretations of Ralph Vaughan Williams' "On Wenlock Edge."

St. Lawrence cellist Christopher Costanza, violist Lesley Robertson, violinist Scott St. John and Nuttall, with Wadsworth, provided perfect accompaniment in this song cycle based on A.E. Housman's "A Shropshire Lad."

From church bells to plowed fields to harnesses jingling, Groves' excellent diction matched the quartet and keyboard in evoking this quintessential English experience. Riveting.

The big finish brought back Alisa Weilerstein's soulfully expressive cello, Todd Palmer's masterful clarinet, St. John's shimmering violin and Stephen Prutsman's flowing piano, along with new kids Hsin-yun Huang on viola and Eric Kuske on French horn.

This quirky combination happened to be the instruments played by a group for whom Hungarian composer Erno Dohnanyi wrote his "Sextet in C Major," Op. 37. The virtuoso ensemble artfully molded the arc of this music that juxtaposes varieties of rhythms and moods, from Tom & Jerry chase sequences to the most sumptuous waltz.

The new venue opens up the sound, and while the Dock Street Theatre's intimacy is missing (Wadsworth promised body mikes today for his onstage remarks), acoustics seem superior in scope.

Treat yourself to this concert, repeated at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. today.