New York ? Gabriela Montero says she and the other members of the Obama inauguration quartet were not trying to fool anybody by having recorded music played in the biting cold.

Shaken by comparisons to lip-syncers Milli Vanilli, the pianist insists she and fellow musicians Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and Anthony McGill “did the right thing.”

“What is upsetting me these days is the fact that we put so much love into this, with a very profound desire to make it so beautiful,” the Venezuelan-American pianist said Tuesday in a telephone interview from Boston.

Just before Obama was sworn in on Jan. 20 with temperatures in the 20s, the quartet appeared to play “Air and Simple Gifts,” a short work composed for the occasion by John Williams.

Montero said the quartet actually did play, but the music was drowned out by the amplified music.