MUSIC REVIEWS : Guitar-Based Pieces for Chamber Music / LA

The second Chamber Music/LA program, Wednesday at the Japan America Theatre, rather neatly mirrored the odd opener Sunday, except that the guitar replaced the piano as the focus . . . and it didn’t work half so well.

Essentially a series of unimaginatively accompanied solos, Paganini’s Quartet in D, Opus 5, No. 1, received a tentative, seemingly under-rehearsed performance complete with awkward pauses for unison page turns, despite the real skills of violinist Paul Rosenthal, violist Toby Hoffman and cellist Nathaniel Rosen. Other than in his few and brief solos, guitarist David Tanenbaum was almost completely inaudible, robbing the slender piece of figural energy and sonic distinction.

In Takemitsu’s evocative solo “All in Twilight,” Tanenbaum also failed to project much sound or any sense of why it was on the agenda, other than as the festival’s lone recognition of the music of our own time. In what could be heard from row L, back under the balcony, the guitarist seemed to be supremely liquid in phrasing and deftly varied in color, but his repressed scale dotted the fabric with sonic black holes.

Tanenbaum proved more forthcoming in Piazzolla’s “Histoire du Tango,” although still inhibited in playing eminently neat but sadly short in expressive range. Violinist and festival director Yukiko Kamei provided a more supple and passionate sense of this elegantly sensual music.

The second half of the program seemed to have nothing to do with the first, boasting as it did a powerhouse account of Faure’s Piano Quartet in G-minor, Opus 45.

Pianist Mari Kodama anchored a sweeping, affecting reading with pointed, powerful work, supportive of both the music’s scenario and her colleagues. They--the evening’s third violinist, Mark Peskanov, with violist Hoffman and cellist Rosen--supplied complementary accuracy, warmth, nuance and thrust.