John Lutterman

Last Tuesday’s performance by Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax at Davies Symphony Hall was designed to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of two of the most iconic Romantic era musicians, Frédéric Chopin and Robert Schumann. Piano works are the foundation of both composers’ oeuvre, but

Best known in recent years for his willingness to explore a broad variety of postmodern musical styles and cultures, on Thursday night Yo-Yo Ma graced the stage of the Mondavi Center at UC Davis with a program of J.S. Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites, a return to the repertoire that he cut his teeth on.

Perhaps my expectations have been colored by the approaching inauguration, but Sunday night's performance by cellist David Requiro with the Marin Symphony, now in its seventh year under the able stewardship of Music Director Alasdair Neale, left me with unanticipated though unmistakable feelings of hope for the future of symphonic music-making in the Bay Area.

There was a last-minute alteration to the program that the Tokyo String Quartet, under the auspices of San Francisco Performances, presented at Herbst Theatre on Thursday, and for the saddest of reasons: Violist Kazuhide Isomura, the single remaining founding member of the group, had been diagnosed with a detached retina earlier in the day.

Judging from its performance at the Crowden Music Center in Berkeley on Sunday afternoon, the Afiara String Quartet faces a future both promising and challenging.

Friday night’s performance by Europa Galante offered a long-awaited opportunity to hear some of the most colorful performers on today’s early-music scene.

The Takács Quartet returned to Hertz Hall Sunday for another installment in its all-Beethoven cycle, under the auspices of Cal Performances. It was great to see that the Quartet has developed an enthusiastic Bay Area audience, one willing to forgo a gorgeous afternoon to delve into the intricacies of two of Beethoven's most challenging quartets.