Offerings of Venezuela with Reverón Piano Trio

“Four Folk Songs” by local Bay Area composer Gabriela Lena Frank reflects her Peruvian heritage. It incorporates Peruvian folk material but sounds more like miniature tone poems. Chaotic chatter and clattering smashes represent children’s dances and ancient harsh civilizations. A quieter movement has the piano carrying a vocal-like melody in chords while the violin and cello are strummed in the manner of a guitar or the smaller charango as would be heard in a Peruvian pub.

Three smaller pieces finished up the Latin American contribution. “Verano Porteño” is the summer movement of Astor Piazzolla’s “Four Seasons of Buenos Aires.” It’s a lively piece featuring scratching chords and other forms of deliberately harsh bowing to keep the music chipper. “Mi Teresita” by the 19th-century Venezuelan virtuoso pianist Teresa Carreño is a tiny waltz that sounds like circus music, because much Latin American salon music of that era was transcribed for circus organs and that became the associated style. “Samba Corrente” by the Uruguayan-American composer Miguel del Águila, a chittering manic dance, was the encore.

Often an ensemble dedicated to lighter or unusual modern music will program an older standard repertoire work along with it, showing the musicians can cover that type of piece too. The Reverón Trio showed itself equally accomplished in this part of the program; the players’ ability to handle the complex modern Lorenz and Frank music gave them the ability to handle older music without any difficulties or stiffness.

Their choice of music, while older, is not a standard repertoire piece. It ought to be one, though, especially in the hands of the Reverón Trio. It’s the Piano Trio in D Minor, Op. 11, by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel. The trio played this with a stately urgency reminiscent of the Op. 49 Trio in the same key by the composer’s brother, Felix Mendelssohn. Yet, it was hardly duplicative of Felix’s work. For one thing, it has no scherzo; there are two gentle slow movements instead of the usual one. This rendition of the Trio was more vivid and had more distinct character than other performances I’ve heard.

In this piece, Otamendi displayed a strong, heavy touch on the piano but was always capable of modulating its strength to be gentle when necessary to keep from overbearing her colleagues. Gollo’s violin had a bright and cutting sound, while Contreras gave a smooth keening moan on the cello, ideal for lyrical passages. The instruments were always balanced, showing an ensemble of players who listen to one another and care about their mutual sound.

In a preconcert master class with local high school students, Gollo urged them not too sound “too classical” in their manic and unruly piece by Paul Schoenfield. Gollo and his colleagues took their own advice in the proper moderation. The slightest touch of the wild and irregular breathed life into Hensel and made the Latin American music interesting, arresting and often fun to listen to.

Kohl Mansion’s next series concert is Feb. 23. The Trio Karénine from France, also piano and strings, will bring music from their country, by Camille Saint-Saëns, Maurice Ravel and the one woman in the early 20th-century composing group “Les Six,” Germaine Tailleferre.