MUSIC REVIEW : Three’s Pleasant Company in Friendly Amici Trio

IRVINE — Only two works required the entire Amici Trio during its Irvine Barclay Theatre program Tuesday. The group placed much more emphasis on the first half of its name than the last, exploring all combinations of flute, cello and piano.

Flutist Michel Debost, pianist Monique Duphil and cellist Jay Humeston invested both the erudition of academics--Debost and Duphil teach at Oberlin College Conservatory in Ohio--and the eclecticism of seasoned chamber-musicians into their thoughtful, if usually lightweight, agenda.

Accordingly, during a concert sponsored jointly by the Laguna Chamber Music and Orange County Philharmonic societies, flute and cello indulged in heated and insistent dialogue for Villa-Lobos’ “Assobio a Jato” (Jet Whistle), pausing only for moody commiseration during the Adagio.

Pianist Duphil joined Debost in Schumann’s pleasant Three Romances, Opus 94, originally for oboe and piano, a combination that affords a more focused sound. Here, with occasional breathy tones from the flute, the work received a somewhat diffuse but unpretentious and likable performance.

The husband and wife team of Humeston and Duphil treated the Sonata in A, Opus 69, of Beethoven, the gutsiest offering of the evening, with passionate determination, though not flawless balance. The pair sustained warmth and intimacy throughout the cantabile and brought handsome contrasts to aggressive fast movements.

In their work together, the three gamboled amiably in trios by Haydn (in G, Hob. XV:15) and Carl Maria von Weber (in G minor, Opus 63). In both cases, they related as animated familiars, sympathetic and of like musical inclination.