Keeping Warm

It was so cold in Fullerton’s Sunny Hills High School auditorium Sunday afternoon that many in the audience wore coats and scarves. Onstage, however, the Dunsmuir Piano Quartet’s concert delivered fiery playing that heated things up.

The quartet gave warm, involving readings of 19th and 20th century pieces, beginning with Schubert’s Adagio and Rondo Concertante.

This youthful work, a breezy amalgam of personal expression and styles that would have been current in 1816, received its generous and amiable due, in a performance that simmered with technical finesse and stylistic sophistication. It also balanced well with Copland’s Quartet for Piano and Strings that followed.

Very different in its musical language, but equally a blending of the composer’s voice with the styles of his time, Copland’s 1950 composition found dauntless and empathetic protagonists in these players, who altered their tone quality for its more acerbic character and wove melancholy lines into harsh textures.

In prefacing remarks, pianist Justin Blasdale spoke of Copland’s tongue-in-cheek references, to cowboy tunes and barnyard sounds, but never mentioned the term “twelve-tone.” Perhaps he felt that the heavy infusion of tonal references in the score made the matter irrelevant or off-putting for the listener.

The concert presented by the Fullerton Friends of Music also featured violist Roxann Jacobson, cellist Jennifer Culp and violinist Ronald Copes. Copes, who plays with the Juillard Quartet, was sitting in for Dunsmuir’s regular violinist, Margaret Batjer, who is expecting her second child this month.

The players were comfortable with both the music and with one another--Copes is a former member of the Dunsmuir--bouncing enticing ideas among themselves. Sometimes this meant highlighting a sense of tortured pathos, but often, especially in the scherzo, it resulted in witty repartee and rhythmic dueling.

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The ensemble switched gears once again for the Piano Quartet in E-flat, Opus 87, by Dvorak, adopting a voluptuous sound and approaching it with larger-than-life dimensions. They showed both potency and poignancy, hurtling through fiery sections while still taking time to sing lilting tunes and color them with a wealth of dynamic riches.