MUSIC REVIEW : Lincoln Players Display Skill

The contingent from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center that appeared Sunday in Beckman Auditorium at Caltech was no ragtag band hastily assembled for touring purposes and to capitalize on an august name. These were top guns.

Headed by violinist Joseph Silverstein and pianist Lee Luvisi, the New Yorkers offered the sizable Coleman Chamber Concerts audience ample evidence of their well-honed skills. But a certain lassitude dominated the afternoon.

The central solo of Mozart’s seraphic Oboe Quartet was in the capable, strongly motivated hands of Stephen Taylor and, when given the opportunity, he was seconded by the secure, forthright playing of violist Paul Neubauer.

But it was the veteran Silverstein who set the tone of the performance here and in the ensuing Horn Trio of Brahms, with his finically delicate, sempre vibrato playing.

The seemingly unquenchable emotional fires of the Brahms Trio burned faintly on this occasion, although it would be difficult to imagine a cleaner delivery than that offered by hornist Robert Routch, Silverstein and Luvisi. Expressive and dynamic caution reigned, where emotions should have raged.

The post-intermission portion offered greater rewards, with Taylor and Luvisi breathing life into Hindemith’s rather glum 1938 Sonata for Oboe and Piano, and some of the most attractive attributes of Faure’s C-minor Piano Quartet were realized.

If the drama of the outer movements of the Faure remained muted, the shimmering delicacy of the Scherzo and the aching lyricism of the Adagio were treated with the requisite subtlety and coloristic variety.