Music Reviews : Quartetto Beethoven di Roma at the Wilshire Ebell

When a chamber group travels over the well-beaten path of Brahms and Schumann, hope that it has a few new things to say, some fresh ideas. With the Quartetto Beethoven di Roma--which performed Wednesday night for the Music Guild at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre--this hope was fully realized in vital, insightful and even original readings of two piano quartets by this German pair.

The ensemble, now in its 20th year, is showing its age in a good way: The players--Felix Ayo, violin, Alfonso Ghedin, viola, Minai Dancila, cello, and Carlo Bruno, piano--communicate with the unified precision and purpose of long association.

The concert began with Brahms’ Piano Quartet in C minor, a work generally considered one of his most tragic.

The Quartetto di Roma’s performance, however, was a different matter. It stressed a balance of moods. Nowhere was this better exemplified than in the ensemble’s lean textures. The piano was placed well back in the sound picture, its presence sometimes just the faintest pulse and never more than one among equals. The strings played without undue effort and still remained easily in the foreground.

Clarity of line was emphasized over dark, gloomy sonority. Articulation was pure, never jabbed for emotional weight. Tempos were forward, and never dawdled over sorrowful expression.

The outer movements made their points decisively, with compact phrasing and understated emotion. The Scherzo was a study in momentum, not devilry, with its lightly accented syncopations and unhurried pace. And the E-major slow movement became the emotional core of the work: Its steady pace, a true Andante, never slowed for bittersweet effect, the players singing out freely and easily, the counterpoint as clear as the lines in a Baroque fugue.

Schumann’s Piano Quartet, which concluded the program, met with similar success. Of particular beauty was the lyrical third movement, its melodies shaped with great sensitivity to direction and the accompaniment mirroring every contour, every slight nuance, of those lines.