MUSIC REVIEW : Amsterdam Guitar Trio at the Ambassador

Guitar ensembles of all kinds are enjoying a boom period. Most prominently, perhaps, is the Amsterdam Guitar Trio, which returned to Ambassador Auditorium Thursday with a characteristic program of transcriptions and West Coast premieres.

The new works proved striking additions to the repertory. Akira Nishimura’s “Pipa” is a remarkably liquid tremolo study, its lyrical core rocked throughout by brusquely dissenting counter-subjects.

Chiel Meijering’s music has been an AGT constant since the ensemble was formed 12 years ago, and “Two Men and a Lady” is the title track on the group’s new CD, devoted to Meijering. “Two Men and a Lady” begins quietly, but soon turns turns into a typically rough, energetically escalating spiral of musical violence.

The title refers to the ensemble members, Johan Dorrestein, Olga Franssen (replaced on this tour by Edith Leerkes) and Helenus de Rijke. They played with vigorous panache, producing pointed, well-balanced sound in intermittently wayward efforts.

The other contemporary piece on the agenda was Nikita Koshkin’s bustling, harmonically bent “Zapateado.” The direct, firmly focused and technically stable playing served it well.

Transcriptions completed the something-for-everyone program. Most inspired was the blithe, pertinent version of Prokofiev’s “Classical” Symphony, although the playing was occasionally scattered and there was too much tempo-tugging in the outer movements.

Albeniz’s folk-song-based “El Corpus Christi en Sevilla” from Book I of “Iberia” also proved an apt choice. Debussy’s “Petite Suite,” however, was merely a pretty warm-up.

In encore, the Trio offered “Mi-a-ou” from Faure’s “Dolly.” The guitarists then barely managed to beat the small and evidently disinterested audience out of the hall.