By William R. Wineke
Special to Channel 3000

The Minneapolis Guitar Quartet has been around since 1986 but, looking at its members, you might guess that they get together following concerts to drink beer and play chess.

There's something clean cut, wholesome and nerdish about these musicians that doesn't take away from their musical abilities but, in a somewhat charming way, enhances them. The quartet was the headline act for the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra's January Masterworks concert at the Overture Center Friday night.

They played "Concierto Anduluz: for Four Guitars & Orchestra" by Joaquin Rodrigo, a blind Spanish composer who, according to "Grace Notes" author Norman Gilleland, not only "wrote some of the most enduring music in the guitar repertory and elevated the guitar to the status of an orchestral instrument" but was never able to personally master the instrument.

The quartet members, O. Nicholas Raths, Jeff Lambert, Joseph Hagedorn and Jeffrey Thygeson, certainly have mastered their instruments. Although the piece they were playing involved dances and enthusiastic riffs, the Quartet maintained a light, almost feathery touch, sort of taking the vibrancy of Madrid and muting it through a Minnesota filter.

It worked.

Still, the atmosphere of the concert was just a bit odd, not so much because of the musicians -- though one appeared to be wearing running shoes with his white tie and tails, as the audience. At least one woman knitted throughout the performance and another kept popping pieces of white bread into her mouth. She had a little plastic bag filled with bread.

Now, neither of them caused anyone else any disruption at all. They weren't bothering anyone. But, still, I've never seen anyone eat bread at a concert before.

The remainder of the concert included Grazyna Bacewicz's "Concerto for String Orchestra," a lyrical piece composed in 1948 that demonstrated the artistry of the WCO's string players, and Alberto Ginastera's "Variaciones Concertantes," a piece that begins with a theme played by harp and cello followed by 11 variations and interludes.

Now, before I explain how much I, personally, hated this piece, fairness dictates that my wife, Jacqueline, loved it and the guy sitting behind us could only exclaim, "Wow!" when the musicians finished.

It wasn't the musical craftsmanship that I hated. The piece seems to include a solo role for nearly every instrument in the orchestra and each rose to the occasion. But the music, itself, written in 1953, tends to be loud and clangy and, to my mind, garish.

Not to my wife's mind. She liked it. Different notes for different folks, I guess.