The Amabile Piano quartet returned to Columbus last night, performing for the Columbus Chamber Music Society in Mees Hall at Capital University.

The concert was dedicated to the memory of Ruth Groner, a long-time society board member and chamber music advocate who died last month.

Few touring ensembles focus on the repertoire for violin, viola, cello and piano: The Amabile would be notable in a more crowded field.

Pianist Marian Hahn, violinist Martha Caplin, violist Kathleen Mattis and cellist Lisa Lancaster are all award-winning soloists, but it is their sensitivity to one another that warrants the most applause.

The unusual program began and ended with major works and placed encores in between. Piano quartets by W.A. Mozart (in G Minor, K.478) and Johannes Brahms (No. 2 in A Major, Opus 26) provided the substance with Manuel de Falla and Fritz Kreisler as the charming in-betweeners.

Mozart's G minor compositions are special even for him. The piano quartet is not the equal of the viola quintet and the Symphony No. 40 in that key, but it has dramatic intensity, melodic abundance and the unique blend of freshness and inevitability that define Mozartean.

The Amabile performance was all one could ask of an ensemble playing modern instruments.

Brahms' second piano quartet is chamber music on a symphonic scale, if a bit sprawling. The second movement is hauntingly beautiful and the rousing finale is central European country dancing at its best. The players' darker sound and athletic style were just right.

Mattis and Hahn offered excerpts from Suite Populaire Espagnol, an arrangement of selections from Falla's wonderful Seven Popular Spanish Songs for voice and piano. The arrangement is attractive, and the playing was sincerely felt, but neither holds a candle to the original in the hands of a gutsy mezzo soprano.

Fritz Kreisler was one of the great violinists of this century and a competent composer. Many of his charming miniatures, such as Liebesleid (Love's Sorrow) and Liebesfreud (Love's Joy), are evergreen violinists' encores.