Music Reviews : Ames Piano Quartet Brings Its Sense of Vigor, Forward Motion to Fullerton

Offering a combination of tight ensemble work, urgency and spirit, the Ames Piano Quartet opened the 31st season of concerts sponsored by the Fullerton Friends of Music Sunday afternoon at Sunny Hills High School.

A typical piano quartet program will include one of five works: one of the two Brahms or two Dvorak quartets, or Schumann’s Quartet in E-flat. The Iowa State University faculty members closed with the Schumann, to which they brought a wealth of vigor and forward motion. In the finale especially, the four generated nearly limitless excitement, all the while maintaining sure rhythmic and technical control.

Pianist William David and the three string players--violinist Mahlon Darlington, violist Laurence Burkhalter and cellist George Work--exhibited telling expressivity during the Andante, though elsewhere Burkhalter failed to assert sufficiently and his sound was often lost under that of his colleagues. Also typical fare is Beethoven’s Quartet in E-flat, the program-opener, to which the Iowans brought stylish linear contour and refinement.

In between, a 20th-Century work might have provided welcome contrast. But the 13-year-old ensemble, which seeks to explore little-known works for the combination, offered instead an earnest reading of Charles-Marie Widor’s 1891 Quartet in A minor. (The French organist and composer wrote a surprisingly large list of chamber works.)

The four pursued their case with diligence, bringing arching lyricism, poetic eloquence and great accuracy to their playing but failed to made a convincing statement out of this rambling, prolix essay.

Another Gallic work, a movement from a serenade by Reynaldo Hahn, equally forgettable but fortunately shorter--served as the handsomely delivered encore.