by Myor Rosen
Special to The Daily News

The world-class Kandinsky Trio presented an admirable concert Sunday at the Gubelmann Auditorium of The Society of The Four Arts. Guest artists David Salness, viola, and Susan Waterbury, violin, joined them.

First, a few words about the Four Arts' musical series and its enviable acoustical auditorium: The Four Arts sponsors a series of nine or 10 eclectic musical events ranging from renowned soloists such as Samuel Ramey of Metropolitan Opera fame to famous chamer ensemble such as the Kremlin Chamber Orchstra, the St. Petersburg String Quartet and, of course, the Kandinsky Trio.

But the Gubelmann Auditorium, far from anything to rave about architecturally is a jewel of acoustical balance, clarity and resonance. Without in any way diminishing the rhythmic and harmonic blending of the strings and the piano, every note of each instrument had clarity and immediacy such as one would experience in his own living room. A true "chamber" music experience.

The award-winning Kandinsky Trio, now in its 14th year of music-making, took its name from the famous abstractionist artist Wassily Kandinsky, who believed that color could become like music in its interrelationships of tones and intensities. Or, as the Kandinsky Trio proved today, the reverse is equally believable.

The trio, Elizabeth Bachelder, piano, Benedict Goodfriend, violin, and Alan Weinstein, cello, opened the program with a very early one-movement sonata form piece by Franz Schubert, The Sonatensatz. Schbert, 15 when he composed this piece, gave evidence of the developing genius that was soon to follow, and revealed his gifts of harmonic and and melodic orginality. The artists played their technically demanding parts with apparent ease and an impeccable blend of ensemble.

The second number, Trio in C minor, Opus 1, No. 3 by Ludwig van Beethoven, the title of which suggests that thes was one of the first three trio works of the then-23-year-old-composer, was actually begun while the composer was under the tutelage of Joseph Haydn, and followed a wealth of other compositions. At this performance, the violinist had moments of rhapsodic virtuosity, while the cellist matched his flight with the richer middle and lower tones of his instrument. The pianist was outstanding in her rendidtion of the great composer's complex piano score.

The poor ubiquitous piano is so sadly underrated and taken for granted. Beethoven was pianist of giant proportions in his time, and his compositions with piano place similar demands on today's artists. Bachelder provided elegant justice to these demands. If there was a note of complaint, it was not with the performer, but with the capacity of the piano on stage to take the full brunt of the fortissimo passages in the upper register of the instrument. But this momentary jarring note did spoil the overall pleasure of the performance. The pianist cannot fold her own familiar loving instrument into a case and carry it with her on tour, like a violin or a cello, but must adjust to a different sound and feel each time.

The third number was a short piece of fluff called On Foreign Lands by Chien-Tai Chen, a Taiwanese composer who spent 20 years of his life studying in the United States. It consisted of a pleasantly romantic opening; an uncomplicated lyrical ditty performed by the violinis, accompanied by the pianist; a similar ditty performed by the cellist, with appropriate behavior on the part of the violinist; and ending with about eight measures of a unison coda with both strings playing together. If this number was inserted to "fill out" the program because of the shorter first piece, it was not needed, as the concert lasted a little more than two hours. Enough said.

The major work on the program was the great Quintet in A Major, Opus 81 by Antonin Dvorak. However, like many creative geniuses before and after him, Dvorak destroyed a similar quintet with which he was dissatisfied, attempted to revise and retrieve it 15 years later, and finally decided on a completely new work. The result was the above quintet, which now is considered one of the three masterpieces of this form, together with those of Schumann and Brahms.

Dvorak is known for his love of the Bohmian folk idiom epitomized by his lyrical themes-many in minor keys-his changing moods of sadness, increasing jubilation, abrupt tempo changes, happy interludes and exuberant codas. His final movements are dance-like and filled with melodic vitality. The Kandinsky Trio enjoyed the assistance of the two guest artists, Susan Waterbury as the second violinisht and David Salness as violist. The gorgeous alto sound of the viola was evident during the many solo passages. The two violins complemented each other like two playful birds in flight. The cellist had his share of deeper sonorities and the pianist was superb ini sensitivity and clarity.

When the players took their final bows, the audience enthusiasme drew an encore in the form of a repeat of part of the Scherzo movement. Bravo, Kandinsky Trio.