Michelle Dulak Thomson

Even Cal Performances' starrier guests don't routinely sell out Zellerbach Hall. But more than two decades into his high-profile career, Joshua Bell's name still deservedly wields an uncommon pull, and it was to a capacity audience that he and pianist Jeremy Denk played on Sunday afternoon. The duo's Berkeley recital represented the one Northern California blip in a taxing tour (tucked in between a Costa Mesa concert on Saturday night and a Palm Desert one Tuesday). I hope the blame for a vexingly uneven recital may be assigned at least partly to fatigue.

In the mid-1980s, when period-instrument bands began venturing out of the Baroque into music of first the late 18th and then the early 19th centuries, many had names at embarrassing variance with the sort of music they were playing. Some of them adopted different names depending on the repertoire on a given program, or reinvented themselves de novo under less period-specific monikers (the English Baroque Soloists renamed itself the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, for example).

Grateful though we must be for the continual flow of new, exciting young ensembles to Bay Area concert halls, it's another and possibly greater pleasure when the most impressive of them drop in a second time. The Belcea Quartet, whose first visit here was two years ago, made a most welcome repeat appearance Thursday night.
The 2006 recital revealed a strikingly polished young quartet with its own firm (and most unusual) profile.

It's one of the quirks of the music business that star players tend to get locked into playing and recording only the most familiar repertoire, at least early in stardom. Look at the trajectory of any young violinist signed by a major label (if, that is, you can find one).

Brahms chamber music seems to be breaking out unnervingly in threes this season. First it was the three string quartets on a single program (the Emerson Quartet, in October). Coming up in February are the three piano trios (Nicholas Angelich and the brothers Capuçon, courtesy of San Francisco Performances).

Of the great Christian holidays, Christmas affords composers perhaps the greatest range between grandeur and simplicity. At one end, the whole of Creation rejoices; at the other, a tiny infant in a hovel is the linchpin of all things.

The New Century Chamber Orchestra's search for a new music director has had the side benefit of allowing its audiences to hear not just a slew of interesting violinist/leaders, but also the diversity of the orchestra’s musical personality. Last Wednesday at San Rafael's Osher Marin Jewish Community Center, the leader-of-the-month was the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra's Margaret Batjer. Batjer is not, as I understand it, in the running for the directorship (the results of the search are to be announced on November 29).

Playing string quartets once was no one's full-time job. The professional string quartet whose players spend essentially all their professional time concertizing, recording, or teaching as a quartet is a historically recent development. All the same, it's now so firmly established a pattern that such part-time ensembles as there are look almost like second-rate substitutes for the "real thing."
How can any four people get together after a gap of months and play with the refined ensemble of a foursome that practices together daily for years on end?