By Erik D. Dyar
[Editor’s note: Unable to attend this concert, I asked Erik Dyar to write a review for PENINSULA REVIEWS. Mr. Dyar, an architect by profession, is also an accomplished pianist who performed a recital in Carmel, California last year.]
After hearing the concert by the Mozart Piano Quartet at the First United Methodist Church in Pacific Grove on Saturday night, presented by Chamber Music Monterey Bay, I was puzzled by the group’s name. I felt they should call themselves the “Brahms Piano Quartet†instead of the “Mozart Piano Quartet†based on their performances of the two works by these composers that they presented. Indeed, in the bio information about the musicians in the concert program, it indicated their specialty was in the Romantic repertoire. In any case, it was an improvement over their previous name, “Ensemble Tiramisu,†for these musicians are certainly more substantial than this light and sweet Italian dessert might suggest.
The musicians opened their performance with the Mozart Piano Quartet in E-Flat, K. 493. What was immediately apparent was the lustrous string tone and fine musicianship displayed by violinist Natalie Chee, violist Harmut Rhode and cellist Peter Hoerr. The sound of pianist, Tamara Anna Cislowska, however, was to some extent obscured by her colleagues, and, I think, by the acoustic nature of the space and perhaps by the use of a 7-foot, Steinway Model B piano, instead of a 9-foot Model D concert grand.
