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CHAMBER MUSIC REVIEW
January 29, 2007
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The East Bay’s Newest Classical Venue By Jason Victor Serinus
Berkeley has a new monthly chamber music series, and not where you might think. Conceived of as a 60- to 75-minute, audience-friendly excursion into the classical chamber repertoire, the series takes place on the stage of Berkeley’s venerated listening room, the Freight & Salvage (aka the nonprofit Berkeley Society for the Preservation of Traditional Music). Usually a home for amplified folk, world, and bluegrass artists, as well as singer-songwriters with a distinctly antiestablishment Weltanschauung, Classical at the Freight marks a first for the 38-year-old venue.
No doubt it also marked a first for the artists of the Raven Trio, two of whom were initially far more reticent to enter into conversation than host and series founder Benjamin Simon. Simon, the trio’s violist as well as music director of the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, talked up a storm, eventually drawing out violinist Kay Stern (usually concertmaster of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, as well as a founding member of the Lark Quartet) and cellist Dana Putnam Fonteneau (a San Francisco Conservatory of Music instructor who hopes to integrate music into her future work as a somatic therapist).
The Raven Trio In between and around the words, they made music. Quite good music in fact. Although the Freight’s acoustic, with the wall behind the stage covered with sound-absorptive panels, is a mite dry, the informal intimacy of the setting — the audience quite close, in movable chairs, some positioned next to tables for sipping tea, coffee, or soda — lent an uncommon warmth to the performances. Not that the casually clad musicians weren’t warm to begin with. The opening work, Schubert's one movement "little" String Trio in B-flat Major, D. 471, was a delight. Stern occasionally hit a wrong note, but never a sour one. Fonteneau’s cello (at least in this venue) hardly made the richest sound in memory. But the three players were so of one mind, so well connected and in harmony with each other, so expressive in their well-judged exuberance, and so clearly enamored of the music that slight blemishes and imperfections meant nothing. It was impossible to sit there taking notes, or in fact do much more than succumb to the combined charms of Schubert and the Ravens.
Then came the first long round of words. Characterizing the trio’s members as “sort of string quartet dropouts,” Simon went from introducing the players to talking about the instruments and their ranges and the lives of Schubert and Beethoven. He got Schubert’s birth year wrong by one, his contraction of syphilis wrong by three, and might not have told us what piece they had played had not someone from the audience spoken up and asked. Small points in the grand scheme of things, perhaps, but many audience members, myself included, soon began to tire of hearing far more talk than music. Simon tried far too hard to be “audience friendly.” His underlying assumptions — that audiences often feel separated from the players and put off by the traditional concert format, and that it is far better to share the music-making as if among friends — are certainly true. But if Simon, in true democratic fashion, had really wanted to break down barriers between performers and listeners, he would have consulted his 60-odd new and old friends (including five laudably quiet children) first to find out if they wanted to hear his chatter rather than more music. About 15 minutes into Simon’s jovial spiel, shortly after the trio played Happy Birthday to one of his friends in the audience, the friend responded to Simon’s attempts to draw her into conversation by saying something like, “Enough of the talking, already. Let’s hear some music.” Simon seemed to get it. After introducing Beethoven's String Trio in C Minor, Op. 9, No. 3, and promising (threatening?) to speak about each movement rather than play the entire piece through, he allowed the trio to launch into a wonderful rendition of this profound work.
Talking aside, the Beethoven went wonderfully, with blessedly brief and unquestionably informative verbiage punctuating each movement. The audience loved the trio’s animated interpretation so much that many called for an encore. Not having prepared one, the musicians reprised the work’s scherzo. To these ears, the revisit was even more animated and engaging than before. The best talking was saved for last, when Simon opened the floor to questions. In some ways, it was a mini “All the questions you’ve always wanted to ask about chamber music.” The questions were excellent, the answers to the point, and the personal and musical revelations enriching. By the time the evening ended, over 90 minutes after it began, those who stuck it out felt sated by the experience. Simon will undoubtedly grow in his role as happy host, and Simon Says will provide a clear window on the music at hand. The next Classical at the Freight evenings present the San Francisco Brass Quintet on Feb. 19, and the Five Chairs Woodwind Quintet performing music by Bay Area composers on March 12. With two-for-one tickets available from the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra Web site, and the opportunity to sip, nibble, and learn while listening, the evenings are self-recommending.
(Jason Victor Serinus writes about music for such publications as San Francisco Classical Voice, Opera News, Stereophile, San Francisco Magazine, East Bay Express, and Bay Area Reporter.)
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