By MIKE DUNHAM
Paul Rosenthal: Chamber music series founder sidelined with hand and arm trouble.
In the 40 years since his Alaska debut, I have never known Paul Rosenthal to miss a performance at which he was scheduled to play. But it finally happened. Friday night’s opening program in this year’s Alaska Airlines Winter Classics chamber music concerts in Anchorage found the series without its founder.

Cellist Armen Ksajikian explained to the audience at Grant Hall that it recently became evident that Rosenthal’s left arm and hand were causing him significant pain. At the insistence of his colleagues the violinist removed himself from the lineup and was now in Juneau getting it “checked out.”

This left the group with two problems. “The first is: How do you replace Paul Rosenthal?” Ksajikian said. “Paganini’s dead and Kreisler would probably want too much money. Oh... he’s dead, too.”

Up-and-coming violinist Ayano Ninomiya, winner of numerous major awards, rushed in from somewhere on the other side of the Pacific Ocean to fill the gap. “I’m not sure what time it is,” she apologetically told the audience.

The second problem was how to adjust the programming to accommodate the change in players. In addition to leading this series and the Sitka Summer Music Festival for decades, Rosenthal had also been working with the others on the specific pieces to be played this weekend.

The evening opened as advertised, with Mozart’s Oboe Quartet in F Major, K. 370 — except with Lorna McGhee substituting a flute for the oboe. She was joined by Ksajikian, Ninomiya and violist David Harding. The flute worked best in the Adagio, which McGhee finished with a long quiet tone. But compared to the more familiar oboe, it seemed brittle in the outer movements.

Ninomiya then played Fritz Kreisler’s “Recitative and Scherzo,” a fabulously difficult piece for solo violin. The energetic and spot-on performance erased any doubt about her talent; we were lucky to catch this star at her rising.

McGhee was joined by pianist Judith Cohen in Bartok’s “Hungarian Peasant Suite.” This was another arrangement, this time of music originally written for solo piano. But here the flute made a good fit with the alternately song-like and percussive nature of the score.

The finale was what Ksajikian called “an odd duck,” the String Trio in E-flat Major by Sergei Taneyev, written for violin, viola and the curious treble viola. The last-named part was played on the cello. The team scrambled in many places to keep up with Taneyev’s counterpoint — which approaches the outer limit of what a composer can devise, a performer can play and a listener can still follow. But all in all they managed a respectable reading of this complex yet attractive rarity. The hymn-like slow movement was especially effective.

The Taneyev was plucked from the roster of pieces due to be played on Saturday. The Bartok was plucked from the final concert on Sunday. The Kreisler was plucked from thin air — probably because it’s a virtuoso solo piece that Ninomiya knows by heart. More switches in the rest of the programs appear inevitable as the players work around Rosenthal’s unexpected absence.

The series will continue with performances at 8 p.m. on Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday at Grant Hall. Tickets are $25-$23 at centertix.net.

Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332.