Purity of Guitar Sounds Shines Through Brazil’s Quaternaglia

An aura of purity pervaded the Thursday night concert given by the guitar quartet Quaternaglia in the Little Theatre at Cal State Fullerton. The foursome brought a program of music primarily from their homeland Brazil--not one dominated by the transcriptions one might expect, but a concert of pieces intended for this relatively new genre and, at least in the cases of Sergio Assad, Paulo Bellinati and Egberto Gismonti, written by other well-established guitarists.

The composers’ intimate knowledge of the instrument and the virtuosity of the ensemble--Sidney Molina, Eduardo Fleury, Breno Chaves and Fabio Ramazzina--combined for pointillist transparency, with true colors shimmering in exquisitely balanced textures. Even the single transcription--Sergio Abreu’s arrangement of Villa-Lobos’ “Bachianas Brasileiras” No. 1--held to idiomatic writing rather than attempting to imitate the eight cellos of the original.

For Federico Moreno Torroba’s “Estampas,” the players imparted a strong sense of storytelling, as they answered one another in delicate, matched voices, and conveyed shifting moods. They created an elemental urgency in Assad’s pastiche of native Indian rhythms and romantic interludes, “Uarekena.”

The group seemed equally at home in a pop/folk-influenced piece--like Bellinati’s “Baia~o de Gude” or Gismonti’s “Karate^”--and in one that draws from more sophisticated techniques, such as Cuban composer Leo Brouwer’s “Paisaje Cubano con Rumba,” which sets up a rhythmic landscape over which hypnotic and increasingly anxious events transpire until the patterns finally fragment and disintegrate. Quaternaglia met the requirements of these and others pieces with equanimity and intelligence in its Southern California debut.

* Quaternaglia performs tonight at 8, Recital Hall, Cal State Northridge, 18111 Nordhoff Ave., $12. (818) 677-2488.