MUSIC REVIEWS : APPLE HILL GROUP AT COUNTY MUSEUM

The Apple Hill Chamber Players is a group of musicians based in New Hampshire. Wednesday evening they brought youthful vigor and immoderation to an eclectic program at the Bing Theater of the County Museum of Art.

They also brought a new piece, “Lady Chatterley’s Dream.” In his program notes, composer Jon Deak announces his attraction to the pull of opposites in D. H. Lawrence’s novel. He proposes to represent Clifford with atonal piano music, and Lady Chatterley with “ultra-romantic string writing and sensual piano effects.”

But Deak lacks the courage--or perhaps, the technique--of his convictions. Each of the work’s three “scenes” sound much the same. Clifford’s intellectualism sounds merely chromatic, with strong pitch centers, and Lady Chatterley’s sensuality seems cramped, always compromised by parody.

Deak also asks the musicians to chant, sigh and shout snippets from the novel. There is a great deal of verbal gamesmanship, done with rhythmic zest, but no contrast in style between the scenes.

The results suggested music hall melodrama, despite the conviction and skill apparent in this West Coast premiere by violinist Sue Rabut, violist Betty Hauck, cellist Beth Rapier, bassist Richard Hartshorne and pianist Eric Stumacher.

Stumacher, Rapier and violinist Anthony Princiotti began the concert with Mozart’s Trio in G, K. 564. Here the playing was clean, crisp and thoroughly cursory. The whole seemed propelled more by an impending time limit than musical necessity.

Pianist Robert Merfeld joined Princiotti, Rabut, Hauck and Rapier in Brahms’ F-minor Quintet, bringing emotional poise to bear on the bleaker aspects of the opening movements. Then Merfeld turned to strident pounding in the Scherzo, and frenzy drove the finale, burdened with ensemble problems.