MUSIC REVIEW : L.A. Guitar Quartet at the Barclay

For a concert medium barely a generation old, such as the guitar quartet, simply putting music on the racks is no easy matter. Particularly if the ensemble does not pad its efforts with solo numbers.

Fortunately, repertory is a strong suit of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, as it demonstrated Thursday in a compact yet varied program at the Irvine Barclay Theatre. Some of the repertory is becoming rather overexposed but, in context, still presents fresh and effective sounds.

A limited performance history presents opportunities as well as crises, forcing a welcome--and entirely atypical, these days--reliance on contemporary works. Three recent pieces by guitarist-composers, each distinctive but sharing thoroughly postmodern roots in minimalism and world music, adorned the program.

Ian Krouse’s “Bulerias” explores the obsessive side of flamenco in sweaty volleys of iterative chords, building impressively to a disappointingly brusque end, at least in this performance. It lives on rhythmic interplay, and the collisions of granitic harmonies and primal motivic fragments, all fiercely projected here.

A similar degree of energy, but in a much more genial vein, propels “Elassomorph,” by Stephen Funk Pearson. A metrically bent hoedown surrounds a cool, jazzy middle section with nonstop action, making a light and pleasing divertimento.

Leo Brouwer’s “Cuban Landscape With Rain,” a LAGQ staple, demands delicate control and nuance rather than bravura glory. The ensemble proved perfectly balanced and integrated, sonically lush in even the faintest drops.

The tight playing showed that the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet has had no problem with its latest personnel change. Andrew York now joins John Dearman, William Kanengiser and Scott Tennant, replacing Anisa Angarola with no drop-off in precision or passion. Kanengiser and Tennant generally carry the leads and more technically extrovert work, always within an ensemble context of wide color and dynamic range.

The rest of the agenda consisted of the inevitable arrangements. Kanengiser’s interpretation of Falla’s ballet score “El Amor Brujo” is a complex creation in its own right, however, brilliantly realized and seductively scored.

Tennant’s busy adaptation of the finale to the third “Brandenburg” Concerto, flubbed at the very end in encore, owes much to predecessors. Kanengiser’s account of the Faure Pavane is forthright, as is Dearman’s vivid arrangement of Rossini’s “Barber of Seville” Overture. An uncredited transcription of a Telemann Concerto originally for four violins completed the program.

JOHN FUNG / Los Angeles Times