Poulenc, Brahms, Loeffler | Loeffler Octet at Logan

Tonight at the Logan Center: the Loeffler Octet, built around Charles Martin Loeffler’s 1897 octet, which clarinetist Graeme Steele Johnson found in the Library of Congress in 2020. That was the headline. The highlight came first.

Poulenc wrote his Sonata for Two Clarinets at nineteen, in the army, and it’s over in about seven minutes. It’s weird, quirky, and cute: two clarinets winding around each other like snakes poking their heads out of a charmer’s basket, swaying, shaking, ducking back in. Johnson and Zachary Good played it.

Then the Brahms Clarinet Quintet. The ensemble is good, but this Brahms was clueless: lovely sound, no idea where it was going. Forty minutes is a long time to wander.