By David Abrams
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Abrams.html

The Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music audience knows all too well the caveats of ambitious programming, particularly with respect to the music of Johannes Brahms. The profundity of the mighty composer’s weighty and demanding chamber works presents a number of challenges for ensembles to mount –– and mixed results from recent SFCM-sponsored concerts suggest that too many performers simply bite off more than they can chew (see my earlier review of November’s SFCM program with the Walden Chamber Players).

The Ames Piano Quartet Saturday evening came to Syracuse with an ambitious appetite that included Brahms’s mammoth Quartet No. 1 in G Minor. This brilliant but taxing work is a mouthful, to be sure –– but Ames Saturday evening showed an appreciative audience what it takes to digest this sumptuous, four-movement feast.

Few chamber ensembles earn a living today performing exclusively piano quartets. Unlike the vast string quartet repertory –– chamber music’s equivalent of the horn of plenty –– there are relatively few deserving works scored for violin, viola, cello and piano (most notably a pair of quartets by Mozart and three quartets each by Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Brahms). The Ames Piano Quartet, which touts itself as "one of the few piano quartets in the world," survives by anchoring itself as Ensemble-in-Residence at Iowa State University, where each player is also a member of the school’s music faculty. Those wondering how this piano quartet arrived at its name should know that ISU is located in Ames, Iowa.

The Brahms Quartet in G Minor, which closed the three-work program, demands rich and resonant playing that can fill the hall with a collective vibrancy of tone. And that’s no easy task at Lincoln Auditorium. Ames produced sufficient depth of sound to sustain the intensity throughout the lengthy opening movement, although balance among the strings was somewhat skewered by violinist Mahlon Darlington’s bright-sounding instrument and overbearing dynamic levels. Still, there was a convincing sense of purpose in the Ames Quartet’s delivery and spontaneity of phrasing (particularly in the louder, richly sonorous sections) that provided authority and substance to this poignant movement.

The sharply-dotted rhythmic figures that permeate the third (Andante con moto) movement were executed with precision and confidence, and Ames captured the full force of Brahms’s angst in the triumphant middle section of this movement, which at times recalls the glorious energy of the third movement of the composer’s better-known F Minor Piano Quintet. The four players, led by a brilliant effort on the part of pianist William David, let their hair down in the rousing Gypsy-inspired Rondo alla Zingarese –– tearing through the movement with reckless abandon and creating an ethnocentric potpourri heavily seasoned with schmaltz and finished with a dash of panache.

Paul Schoenfield’s Carolina Réveille, which preceded the Brahms, is a set of variations on the popular tune Carolina in the Morning, composed in 1922 by Walter Donaldson. Listeners must be patient, though, since these abstract variations begin rather slowly before gradually building tempo and momentum until the music blossoms, at last, into the familiar tune near the end of the 12-minute work.

Schoenfield’s writing maintains the parlor-music character of the song, even during the most abstract and rhapsodic parts of the variations, through morphing harmonic flavors that include touches of jazz. His process of variations bears a strong resemblance to the thematic transformation technique of Franz Liszt insofar as Schoenfield’s variations are virtually emancipated from the theme upon which they are based. The work also makes considerable technical demands upon all four players, which the Ames Quartet (by now well acquainted with this work) played magnificently. As part of his informative remarks prior to the performance, pianist David played a richly harmonized version of the tune on the piano –– which alone was worth the price of admission.

The only weak link on the program came at the very beginning, with a lackluster rendition of Mozart’s Piano Quartet No.1 in G Minor, K.478.

This delightful work calls for restraint, delicacy of phrasing, crystal-clear execution of the scalewise passages and, above all, a firm sense of balance among the four players. Such was not the case during the opening movement, as Darlington’s heavy bowing all but sucked the elegance and grace out of Mozart’s delicate score. Moreover, the violinist’s pitch tended to sag throughout the movement. Phrases were generally choppy and full of seams, and there was precious little blend of tone to be heard among the three strings. Things improved, although not dramatically, during the remaining two movements –– especially in the sprightly Rondo movement, whose trills, turns and musical ornamentations sprang to life during David’s stunning piano passagework.

Considering that this Mozart’s Quartet is recognized as the first important work in the piano quartet medium, the Ames Piano Quartet ought to give it the time, care, love and attention it apparently extended to the Schoenfield and Brahms works.