by Michael Caruso

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Chestnut Hill, will be even more alive with music this weekend than the norm — and that’s saying something. The church will host the third in its series of “Five Fridays” Feb. 24, 7:30 p.m., then celebrate Choral Evensong Sunday, Feb. 26, 5 p.m.

The featured artist Friday evening will be pianist Viktor Valkov. He will perform Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata No. 29 in B-flat major, Chopin’s “Polanaise-Fantasy” and a “Mazurka,” and Liszt’s “Valse Impromptu” and the “Hungarian Rhapsody” No. 9. He will be playing on Yamaha’s new CFX nine-foot concert grand, provided by the Cunningham Piano Co. Sunday’s Choral Evensong will feature the adult and treble choirs singing music by Bairstow, Naylor, Ashford, Ayleward and Vaughan Williams. A reception follows both events.

PIFFARO

Piffaro, Philadelphia’s Renaissance Band, presents “Ay Amor! Dying for Love in the 17th century Spanish Theater” Saturday, Feb. 25, 7:30 p.m., in the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill. The period instruments ensemble has teamed with Damon Bonetti, co-founding artistic director of Philadelphia Artists’ Collective, to create a program that intersperses music and text to evoke the passion, drama and humor of an evening at the theater in Golden Age Imperial Spain.

Texts have been drawn from plays by Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina and Pedro Calderon and were selected by Bonetti. The Artists’ Collective specializes in rarely performed classical plays. Excerpts will be interspersed with music and spoken in Spanish with English supertitles. Guest artists include countertenor Drew Minter and soprano Julianne Baird.

Tickets are priced from $29 to $49; call 215-235-8469 or visit www.piffaro.org.

VIENNESE CONNECTIONS

Herbert Blomstedt guest conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra Feb. 17-19 in the Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall. Together with American pianist Garrick Ohlsson, they performed a program that began near the inception of the Viennese classical style with Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major and ended near its conclusion with Brahms’ Symphony No. 3 in F major. In between, Ohlsson filled in an all-important gap with his encore: the Adagio second movement from Beethoven’s “Pathetique” Sonata in C minor.

In the wake of Haydn’s creation of the classical style earlier in the 18th century, Mozart perfected the solo concerto adaptation of the sonata/allegro form that was at the foundation of Haydn’s invention of the classical symphony. Beethoven took those traditionally balanced musical structures and transformed them into forms capable of expressing the romantic aesthetics of the 19th century. His transition through the three periods of his compositional style – early, middle and late corresponding to the onset and totality of his deafness – provided Brahms with the opportunity to prove that the highly charged emotionalism of the romantic style could still be projected within the bounds of the classical structure of the symphony.

Ohlsson approached the Mozart Concerto not so much as a score placed immovably in its specific era, in the manner of many of the “authentic” stylists of our day, but as the fountainhead of the great piano concertos of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In his performance Saturday evening, one not only heard the flawless balance between soloist and orchestra and transparent scoring that are hallmarks of all of Mozart’s piano concertos but also the grandeur and virtuosity that characterize concertos by Beethoven and Brahms.

He chose tempos that were spacious without over-extending the arching narrative of exposition, development and recapitulation in the first movement, the lyrical dialogue between soloist and ensemble in the second, and the elegant vitality of the third. He elicited a pearly tone from his Steinway concert grand piano that evoked memories the legendary Artur Rubinstein when he recorded the Mozart Piano Concertos Nos. 20, 21, 23 & 24 for RCA Victor. Blomstedt elicited playing from the Philadelphians that was both colorful and supportive.

Ohlsson’s choice of encore was right on the mark. Beethoven’s “Pathetique” Sonata launches the closing out of his early classical style and looks forward to the more dramatic middle period, which in turn leads us to Brahms. He played the slow movement with eloquent “gravitas,” voicing the principal melody above the underpinning counterpoint with immaculate clarity and the singing voice of an expert singer of German lieder.

Following intermission, Blomstedt led the Philadelphia Orchestra in a glowing rendition of Brahms’ Third Symphony. He projected the mighty architecture of its four movements in a seamless declamation that never got bogged down in small details but that never overlooked them, either. Every tiny gesture was delicately placed securely within the towering tonal edifice so that individual solos shone like stars in the sky without detracting from the breathtaking vista of the entire firmament. And the shimmering sound he drew from the strings reminded one and all that this was, indeed, the orchestra of Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy. At the symphony’s conclusion, Blomstedt gratefully acknowledged the splendid contributions of the principals of the woodwind choir, including West Mt. Airy bassoonist Daniel Matsukawa.

The audience that packed Verizon Hall responded to all three works of the evening – concerto, encore and symphony – with instantaneous standing ovations. It reminded this old-timer of the orchestra’s glory days when Ormandy was its music director, and you had to inherit a subscription to get a seat.

CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Michael Ludwig, former associate concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra and now music director of the Roxborough Orchestra, will be the guest violin soloist with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia Sunday, Feb. 26, 2:30 p.m. and Monday, Feb. 27, 7:30 p.m. in the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater. The program is entitled “The Sounds of America” and will be conducted by music director Dirk Brosse.

“I’m very excited about my appearances with the Chamber Orchestra,” Ludwig said. He will be the soloist in Daron Hagen’s “Songbook: Concerto for Violin, String Orchestra, Harp & Percussion.” “Daron composed this score for me, focusing on the lyrical nature of my playing. For me, playing the violin is all about singing and creating beautiful colors.”

Kenneth Fuchs’ “American Rhapsody” is also on the program. “This is a beautiful work,” Ludwig said, “transparent in nature and masterfully orchestrated. I am especially looking forward to sharing these two special works with folks right here in my hometown of Philadelphia. The Chamber Orchestra is a wonderful ensemble, and there are many members of it whom I have known and been friends with for many years.”

Tickets are priced from $24 to $81; call 215-893-1709 or visit www.chamberorchestra.org.