Ronen presents Brahms in full force: a sonata adapted, a friend's trio, a landmark quartet

 A durable chamber-music series, founded by two members of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and continued with another ISO couple plus a well-schooled pianist. opened its 2025-26 season Sunday afternoon basking in the musical influencer (and influenced) Johannes Brahms. Sunday's performance at St. Paul's Episocopal Church promised further building by the Ronen Chamber Ensemble on a sound foundation first constructed by David Bellman and Ingrid Fischer Bellman. 

The young Brahms, beardless friend of the Schumanns

A well-designed program gave substantial exposure to artistic directors Alistair Howlett, flute, and Jennifer Christen, oboe, and the constant presence of their artistic partner, pianist Gregory Martin. Titled "Brahms and His Circle," the program will be repeated at the Hilbert Circle Theatre (Wood Room) at 7:30 p.m. today. 

The "circle" in the program title takes in the ghostly presence of Robert and Clara Schumann, eminent musicians at the time the young Brahms got to know them and with whom he forged a long-lasting affinity. The title becomes explicit with the inclusion of a trio by Heinrich von Herzogenberg (1843-1900). Austrian by birth and education, he spent most of his career in northern Germany. 

As Martin noted in oral program notes before a performance of Herzogenberg's Trio for Oboe, Horn, and Piano, the composer's wife, Elizabeth, before her marriage had been Brahms' pupil, and the couple's friendship with the older musician survived Brahms' romantic interest in her. 

The clarity of lines was an immediately attractive feature of the work as performed by Christen, Martin and Alison Dresser of the ISO's horn section. The second movement was focused on  a sprightly hunting-horn theme with more than a touch of Schumann about it. After a lilting "Andante," with the horn seeming to keep it all in motion, the finale unfolded in a neat question-and-answer manner, with a folk-dance feeling and a modest amount of filler. The work was well worth hearing for the first time, even if it did not reveal a previously hidden masterwork.

The first half opened with a new arrangement of Brahms' Sonata for Violin and Piano in G major, op. 78. Howlett reveled in a specially designed spotlight, as his flute substituted for the violin of the original, thanks to an adaptation by Donna Wilson, adjunct professor of flute at Indiana Wesleyan University. Howlett's reliable stamina was up to the sustained phrasing that's second nature to the violin. Changes of bow direction and a nimble left hand can bring off music that an instrument requiring breath control is challenged by. 

Some of the double stops in the violin part were approximated by rolling the involved notes. The only musical sacrifice came in the second movement, where the flute picks up the somber piano theme and, without simultaneously articulated notes,  has to abandon any mimicry suggested by the transfer of mood in the original. It was over all only a slight concession.

When played with Howlett's expertise. the flute can be equally stirring when needed, suggesting emphatic bow strokes and presenting a chromatic coloring of the line that has a charm all its own. In the finale, the flute's emotional restlessness is less contrasty, which I rather enjoyed; the violin can be susceptible to diva posturing, after all. The flute's cooler sonority tends to bring hints of disturbance under consistent control. Howlett and Martin forged an estimable partnership.

After intermission came the Brahms piece that first charmed me as a teenager getting to know chamber music, mostly on record. My mother's LP of the Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor is one of those milestone memories that every music-lover can recall from youthful acquaintance. The Scherzo (second movement) knocked my socks off, and I was enthralled by the overall solidity and passion of the partnership among musicians I had barely heard of at the time. Victor Babin and members of the Festival Quartet were suddenly heroes to me. Later familiarity with the Beaux Arts Trio plus Walter Trampler, for example? Well, okay, but without the indelible badge of first love. I have ever since been wary of the lists of favorites so many arts critics concoct. Having to rank things can be a curse. 

On Sunday the Brahms op. 60 was performed with evident mastery  by Martin, violinist Yeajin Kim, violist Zhanbo Zheng, and cellist Austin Huntington. To single out some spells of excellence: the way the viola smoothly led the way in the first movement; the pianist's vigor and stamp of personality in that thrilling Scherzo, and Huntington's patrician, yet warmly conveyed, solo statement of the tender third-movement theme. Focusing on that "Andante," the music went on to attain an ensemble firmness that could hardly have been more perfect.

Emotional turmoil was rightly held in check in the finale; the tension was firm and the contrasts were both mighty and well-defined. This concert is likely to stick in the memory in the best way, but I didn't mind the rush of nostalgia I got from the C minor piano quartet. Occasionally one can live in the moment and in the past together, oddly enough.