QUICK TAKES - Jan. 28, 2009

Gabriela Montero says she and the other members of the Obama inauguration quartet were not trying to fool anybody by having recorded music played in the biting cold.

Shaken by comparisons to lip-syncers Milli Vanilli, the pianist insists she and fellow musicians Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and Anthony McGill “did the right thing.”

“We decided that it would have been a disaster if we went out there with that cold, with the wind, and played our instruments out of tune,” the Venezuelan American pianist said Tuesday in a telephone interview from Boston. “Can you imagine what kind of tone it would have set? . . . It would absolutely have been a pathetic way to lead a president into his oath and the moment that this country was waiting for so eagerly.”

Montero said the quartet actually did play John Williams’ “Air and Simple Gifts,” but the music was drowned out by the amplified music.