MUSIC REVIEW : Sparse Audience Greets Dutch Ensemble Quink

Never heard of Quink, the vocal ensemble that sang Friday night in Orange Coast College’s Robert B. Moore Theatre? If the meager numbers that attended the concert are any indication, you are not alone.

Nevertheless, Quink is worth hearing. The five-member a cappella group from the Netherlands--in existence since 1978, but not heard in this country until 1985--offers a strikingly translucent blend that its members apply to styles ranging from Renaissance madrigals to contemporary arrangements.

Homogeneous transparency can illuminate much in itself. In this program, the interplay of Hindemith’s contrapuntal lines in “Vom Hausregiment,” from his “Funf Lieder nach alten Texten,” emerged with shimmering clarity. Equally successful were 16th-Century composer John Farmer’s simple madrigal “Fair Phyllis” and the imploring sections of Benjamin Britten’s ‘Hymn to St. Cecelia,” the former bathed in a pure innocence, the latter clothed in reverence.

In the course of the evening, however, transparency and attractive tone too often settled into a pleasant blandness. Though bolstered by flawless intonation and tasteful application of vibrato, Hindemith’s “Frauenklage”--a lady’s lament over the imminent, inevitable parting from her love--cried out for a shift to darker tone, while emphasis on polished simplicity glossed over the playfulness of Thomas Morley’s “Now Is the Month of Maying.”

Quink’s anomalous name was invented by its members--sopranos Machteld van Woerden and Marjolein Koetsier, contralto Corrie Pronk, tenor Harry van Berne, and bass Kees-Jan de Koning--as a composite of various Dutch words including kwinkslag (humor) and kwetteren (to chirp). If Friday’s accent was on the latter, it was not without its lighter side. A trio of animal-inspired selections by contemporary Catalan composer Manuel Oltra--”Bestiari”-- twinkled with good-natured humor aided by clipped, synchronized accent in “Rata-Pinyada” (The Bat) and strident-edged trumpeting in “Elefant.” Quink closed with the same type of silliness that often peppers appearances of the better-known Kings Singers: Paul Patterson’s “Spare Parts,” a bluesy take-off on the Frankenstein story, and “Sag mir nicht ‘adieu,’ ” an imitation of a 1930s recording complete with static and skips.