Yet at ABS’ summer extravaganza, Summerfest, the rules loosen a little. Last year’s recital of 19th-century string chamber music — crowned by what was, by all accounts, a magnificent Mendelssohn Octet — emphasized the lusher (and louder) end of the repertoire.

The only-a-string-quartet program occupying the corresponding spot this year suggested a retrenchment, a gentle drawing back. But Mendelssohn, again the core of the program, once more got his due. Sunday evening at Belvedere’s St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, the ensemble’s longtime home, four ABS instrumentalists built a program around quartet music from opposite ends of Mendelssohn’s all-too-brief composing career.

In the sense of “large-scale pieces with opus numbers,” there are six Mendelssohn string quartets: Opp. 12, 13, 44 (a set of three), and 80. But then there are the bits and pieces before and after. From the composer’s early teens came a variety of short contrapuntal exercises and also a big, four-movement Quartet in E-flat Major from 1823, not to be published for another 55 years.

And then there are the orphaned quartet pieces collected posthumously as Mendelssohn’s Op. 81: two from 1847, the year of the composer’s death; one from four years before; and a forlorn fourth from 16 years before that.

Not long ago, the existence of these “extra” quartets was almost literally academic. If you were a quartet player, you probably knew, after a fashion, that there was something called “Mendelssohn’s Op. 81,” because there the pieces were, taking up the last pages of your Peters Edition parts. But on actual concert programs they were vanishingly rare (though not as rare as the early E-flat Quartet, which isn’t even in the Peters Edition set).

Mystery Quartet

Things have changed enough in the last 15 years or so that when I saw that the ABS players were offering Mendelssohn’s “Quartet No. 1 in E-flat Major,” I didn’t know whether to expect that unnumbered 1823 quartet or the 1829 Op. 12, which happens also to be in E-flat and which bears the lowest opus number among the “canonical six.” Meanwhile, the Op. 81 works are almost repertoire staples by now, showing up on programs either as a (somewhat motley) set of four or, as with this ABS program, in installments.

The ABS quartet’s E-flat “Quartet No. 1″ turned out, somewhat to my relief, to be Op. 12. I’m as flabbergasted as anyone by the 14-year-old Mendelssohn’s skill in 1823, but the guy who wrote this work five years further on was simply a masterly quartet composer. Though the piece doesn’t bang you over the head with its genius, like the Octet, it remains astonishing. Mendelssohn’s models are dead obvious (Beethoven’s “Harp” Quartet is the biggie, though the Scherzo of Cherubini’s First Quartet figures in there too), yet by the time he has done with them, you are hearing the models as implicitly “Mendelssohnian” rather than the reverse. Not many composers of any age can work that trick.

The ABS performance of Op. 12 was the kind of playing you expect, but don’t necessarily get, from an ensemble of accomplished individual players like this one. You noticed both the quality of the ensemble playing and the individual excellence of the players, though the things apt to stick in your head were collaborative moments, little gestures from one player to another or to all.

There’s a little burble in the viola a few bars into the first movement’s Allegro, for example — a thing that can be submerged in the texture as pure “accompaniment” or, to the contrary, made to surface decisively as a miniature “viola solo.” Elizabeth Blumenstock — infinitesimally hesitating, ever so slightly forward — ruffled the stream of the music without splashing. It was so deft and so genial that it’s hard even to say how it was done.

It was also, it’s true, uncharacteristically reticent for the Blumenstock whom Bay Area audiences know and love, and so her playing was all evening. I found myself unable to decide whether the cause was a naturally quiet instrument or a conscious decision to be a “team player,” carried a little too far. A bit of both, I think: Blumenstock didn’t seem to be making the amount of sound that watching her bowing would suggest, but even so she did also appear to be moderating her fire.

Impressive Colleagues

Her colleagues were less circumspect. Tanya Tomkins, the cellist, was an imposing presence everywhere. Even at her quietest she contrived to suggest bedrock stability, while at its most powerful the sound had a thrilling edge. The violins were also strong, if distinctly unlike — Carla Moore dashing and incisively articulated as ever, Adam LaMotte superbly sustained and deep of sound.

LaMotte was the first violin in Op. 12, and he handled that demanding part magnificently, scampering (in the second-movement Canzonetta’s trio section) as attractively as he sang, and adding wry little touches of bow and finger to his lines. (Three times through weren’t enough for me to figure out the secret of that sweet, Kreisleresque portamento he worked into the Canzonetta’s first strain.) LaMotte’s a relatively new figure on the Bay Area early-music scene, and not one I’ve gotten to hear individually before this recital. On this basis he’s a violinist I would like to hear again, and soon.

Moore led the Andante con variazioni (No. 1) and Scherzo (No. 2) of the Op. 81 pieces. Both works are gems — the first a sweet theme and variations erupting into tumultuous minor at one point, and then relaxing back into serenity, the second one of those uncannily whirring little scherzos that Mendelssohn spun off with some regularity. I could have wished for more sheer bravado from Moore in parts of the variations (and more tone from Blumenstock in the viola-led first variation), but the Scherzo was as casually droll as its ensemble was tight.

That the rest of the program seemed like the garnish around the entree was probably inevitable, though it was hard to escape the impression that the Mendelssohn Op. 12 had gotten the lion’s share of the rehearsal time. Schubert’s Quartettsatz, with LaMotte as first violin, received a taut and vigorous performance to lead off the second half. I couldn’t help feeling, though, that it fell between two stools — not ferocious enough in the opening music to justify the relative straightness of the lyrical sections, nor effusive enough there to make up for the relative tameness of the bristly bits.

And Beethoven’s Op. 18/3, led by Moore, got one of those performances where everything is right but the mechanics. Musically speaking — intentionally speaking, if you will — it was genuinely lovely. It was full of wit and tenderness and the kind of joy in the interplay of rhythm and meter that seems to come so much more readily to contemporary “period” players than to “modern” ones. And it did Beethoven the justice of startling us where he obviously meant to startle. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so delightfully bewildered at the point when the finale’s texture suddenly dissolves into a swarm of little three-note motives — or so struck by that passage in the same movement’s coda when Beethoven lets his “Jupiter” Symphony Finale Envy all hang out.

Still, considered as professional quartet playing, the performance was rather a mess — roughly balanced, imperfectly together, and sometimes alarmingly out of tune. I suspect that some of these things will improve in subsequent performances (the program repeats on Thursday in San Francisco, and on Sunday in Davis). But the Mendelssohn — Op. 12 in particular — already shows what these four can do as a quartet.

From the joy and enthusiasm that was in evidence on Sunday at Old First Church, I would have thought the other name, “Florestan,” would be better for the duo. The two Schumann Sonatas for Violin and Piano enfolded one of Johannes Brahms’ loveliest chamber works, the First Sonata in G Major, which shone like a ray of sunshine between these two serious, even tragic works. It was nearly the ideal program to demonstrate their complementary talents.

Eusebius Duo

Schumann was nearing the end of his career when he composed his two sonatas for violin and piano. In them you get a synthesis of the two poles of his personality. The first sonata, composed when the composer was 40, doesn’t even contain a slow movement, but merely an Allegretto between the two lively outer movements. Poor Eusebius seems to be waiting in the wings. The soulful and the passionate appear to be united in song as it passes between the two instruments.

When playing, Gruber, a fine performer with a wide variety of dynamics, tone, and inflection, seemed comfortable speaking in a conversational tone, as well as singing with her violin. This added an engaging element of dialogue, which is frequently called for in the music. Somehow, the little imitative bits that happen frequently sounded fresh and as though both players were really listening to each other.

Mastering the Poetic Extremes

Of course, you still need a pianist who understands that Schumann’s soul truly lives in his piano writing. Schumann started out as a pianist and in his first 10 years as a composer only wrote for piano solo. His music requires a range of expression that extends from manic highs to depressive lows that characterize the poetic extremes found in the early masterpieces, like Davidsbündlertänze and Kreisleriana, plus the ability to adjust to the sound and inflections of another player.

From the moment the two players came on stage, led by the slightly more impulsive Nordwell, you knew that she was up for that challenge. It was marvelous to hear how she gave full emphasis to the piano writing, never being the slightest bit obsequious, and yet never covering the violin line. Indeed, she encouraged the more reserved, but equally passionate, side of her partner.

In Brahms’ First Sonata, also written when the composer was well into his 40s, the dialogue between violin and piano deepened, revealing structural subtleties over and above mere instrumental finesse. For example, the return of the theme toward the end of the development in the first movement, before the “real” return in the recapitulation, was beautifully done. The plangent opening of the second movement in the piano was bracing and unsentimental and provided the right backdrop for the entrance of the mournful theme in the violin.

Gruber’s many varieties of vibrato were well-chosen and contributed to the thoughtful, “Eusebius” tone of the recital. Given Brahms’ tempo marking, Allegro molto moderato, the final movement seemed hurried. However, the ending, which Brahms marks “even more moderate,” ended the work in a rapt reverie.

The Schumann D-minor sonata was given a thrilling performance with a pizzicato duet that was intimate and captivating, calling for an encore that was aptly chosen: Bach’s Bist Du bei mir.

Appropriately, the program began with Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet in A Major, composed for the same sort of “living room performance” that the Gold Coast Chamber Players sought to re-create. At the time of its composition (the late 1810s), the quintet’s scoring was something of a novelty. Rather than adding a piano to a string quartet, Schubert’s quintet comprises piano plus one member each of the string family, replacing the second violin with a bass. This poses interesting challenges of balance and dynamics, with each instrument switching from melody to accompaniment at a moment’s notice.

For the most part, the Gold Coast ensemble proved to be up to the task. Special mention should go to bassist Steve d’Amico and pianist Daniel Shapiro, who responded to the music’s nuances with subtle precision. D’Amico did not simply play loudly when he had the melody and softly when he didn’t; rather, he zoomed in and out of aural focus like a camera, giving the work a sense of depth. Shapiro, too, took command of the texture when the music called for it and then just as nimbly faded back to the very fringe of audibility.

The ensemble’s delicate balance was sometimes thrown askew by violinist Raushan Akhmedyarova, who did not engage with Schubert’s textures with the same care that her fellow musicians displayed. She played accompanimental passages the same way she played the melody, dulling the edges of both and dampening the spirit of this otherwise playful piece. In the second movement Andante, the piano and violin echo each other in a sort of musical conversation. While d’Amico put a little rhythmic push behind his gestures, Akhmedyarova preferred to lean into hers with heavier legato, obscuring the sense of dialogue.

Gamboling Shepherd

The ensemble followed the quintet with Schubert’s Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (1828) for piano, clarinet, and voice. This, too, presented a mismatch of sorts, pairing Tony Striplen’s straight-toned clarinet playing with Ji Young Yang’s vibrato-heavy singing. The juxtaposition was jarring at first. Yang’s operatic delivery seemed to have little to do with the shepherd of the text; it was almost as if she was oblivious to the rustic tone set by the clarinet. But it was hard not to be won over by her vocal gymnastics. She executed Schubert’s treacherously wide leaps with quiet confidence.

The centerpiece of the afternoon was Martinů’s Revue de cuisine (1927), a Disneyesque ballet about kitchen utensils come to life. The piece was written shortly after the composer had settled in Paris and betrays the influence of the musical novelties he encountered there. Above all, he was struck by the jazz invasion that hit Paris in the 1920s, though La Revue de cuisine is characterized less by direct influences than by jazz filtered through Stravinsky, Milhaud, and Ravel.

Of course, the challenge of playing jazz as heard through the ears of classical composers is whether to make it sound like jazz or like classical music. Here, the Gold Coast Chamber Players seemed to be divided. The second movement, titled “Tango,” began hesitantly and never really recovered. The third movement begins and ends with a Roaring ’20s riff for muted trumpet that simply begs to be played with recklessly hammed-up abandon, but John Pearson seemed to shy away from the task. In other circumstances I would applaud his modesty — but not in a movement called “Charleston.”

Thankfully, Shapiro and especially Akhmedyarova responded to the music kinetically as well as musically, swinging and swaying in a manner that visibly engaged the audience. Indeed, it was in this movement that Akhmedyarova supplied the rhythmic energy I had been looking for in the “Trout” Quintet. Few audience members could suppress their smiles as she and the rest of the ensemble breezed through the spirited fourth movement finale, ending this charming and whimsical program on a good-natured note.

So Monday’s program in the Veterans Building’s Green Room, featuring music for clarinet, violin, cello, and (in two of three pieces) piano, was typical of the ensemble’s planning. Less typical was the identity of the oldest piece on the program: not something from the 18th or 19th centuries, but rather Olivier Messiaen’s 1940-41 Quatuor pour la Fin du temps (Quartet for the end of time). In the event, the Messiaen, still bewildering after all these years, dominated but didn’t quite overwhelm a tightly designed and compellingly played program.

Left Coast Chamber Ensemble

Messiaen occupies a peculiar place in the contemporary music world. Judging by the caliber of his reputation, he would seem scandalously underperformed. But in a new-music economy that favors chamber works and shortish orchestral ones, Messiaen wrote precious few of either. The major works are dauntingly large pieces either for solo keyboard (piano or organ) or for enormous forces, pieces whose frequency of performance is harshly constrained by performers’ (and audiences’) stamina, budget, or both. So we get occasional blockbuster productions like San Francisco Opera’s of Saint François d’Assise, and rare ventures like Christopher Taylor’s into the solo piano Vingt Regards sur l’enfant-Jésus — and not much else.

The one meaty chamber work we have is the Quatuor pour la Fin du temps, and that alone would guarantee it a reasonable number of performances. The piece’s remarkable backstory — it was written in a German prisoner-of-war camp, the scoring dictated by the instruments of three other musicians also interned there — doesn’t hurt, either.

But the piece’s real distinction is just that it sounds like nothing else on this earth. Come to the opening “Liturgie de Cristal” (Crystal liturgy) — all wandering piano chords and slithery cello-harmonic glissandi and bright clarinet trills and remote birdcalls picked out high up on the violin — with your ears full of common-currency music of the preceding decade, and your only reaction can be “What the hell? Where are we?”

Weird as Ever

On Monday night, despite sharing the program with the brand-spanking-new (Laurie San Martin’s Objets trouvés, receiving its premiere) and the “difficult” (Elliott Carter’s 1990 Con leggerezza pensosa), the Messiaen was as ineluctably weird as ever. The Left Coast players’ performance was dazzling in its ensemble tautness and its single-mindedness, but it was human brilliance, tinged with toil and with strain.

In the two marvelous string-and-piano paeans, the work’s fifth and eighth movements, cellist Tanya Tomkins and violinist Anna Presler respectively sustained their agonizingly long lines heroically. The great song never broke, but you were constantly, movingly aware of the effort that it took; it was, as Messiaen must have meant it to be, an image of the human attempting to encompass the divine.

In the third-movement “Abîme des Oiseaux” (Abyss of birds), by contrast, Jerome Simas’ clarinet seemed scarcely embodied, let alone human. The sound was clear, splendidly liquid, agile, mysterious, remote. Simas began the movement’s long-note crescendos so quietly that you first became aware of the pitch only to realize that it had already been sounding for some little time.

As for pianist Eric Zivian, whose bright-toned playing showered fistfuls of glittering notes on the second and fifth movements, and whose slow, serene pulse underlay the fifth and eighth, he was, as ever, alert to the music’s every gesture. (It would be fascinating to hear him tackle some of the solo piano music. I wonder if he has.)

Messiaen often leaves the four instruments to their own separate paths, as in that opening movement, but when they’re together, it’s with a vengeance. Presler’s, Tomkins’, and Simas’ taut, cheekily inflected performance of the fourth-movement “Intermèd” was scant preparation for the entire quartet’s blistering performance of the sixth, “Danse de la Fureur, pour le sept trompettes” (Dance of fury, for the seven trumpets), another of those things calculated to knock the unwary listener into the middle of next week.

Is there anything in music up to that point to prepare you for this movement — a wild, rhythmically outré, wickedly irregular unison line for all four instruments that lashes to and fro like a living thing, doubling and redoubling on itself, for a harrowing six minutes without respite? The Left Coast players held on for dear life, and so did we.

With Thoughtful Lightness

In the context of the Messiaen, the Carter opener for once seemed a bagatelle. As it probably should: Surely the right analogue for all those little Carter chamber works of the ’80s and ’90s is the piano bagatelles of Beethoven’s late years, distillations of what had earlier been worked out at greater length and on a more forbidding scale. Con legerezza pensosa (With thoughtful lightness), for clarinet, violin, and cello, takes its title from a phrase of the writer Italo Calvino, but the phrase might have been designed as a subhead for the end of Carter’s still-expanding worklist.

(I suppose something written toward the beginning of the man’s ninth decade qualifies as “late Carter,” but at the rate the indefatigable centenarian is going, we may end up needing more than the customary three periods.)

The piece is brief, poised, intermittently busy, and now and then whimsical, as in its droll disappearing act of an ending. The Left Coast performance was remarkable for the clarity of its gestures and the attention the players gave to its many sudden stillnesses — where the three lines came momentarily together for a long note, there was always a feeling of securely achieved repose.

Laurie San Martin’s Objets trouvés (Found objects) was commissioned by Left Coast as a companion piece to the Messiaen, and the composer (who performed the older work as clarinetist in her UC Berkeley student days) consciously worked elements of it into her own writing. Not that there is much in the way of audible quotation of material — the references I caught were mostly textural and, to a lesser degree, harmonic, and were resemblances rather than identities.

The piece is in three movements, with elements of the second — a sort of vocalise for clarinet and then strings over slowly arpeggiated chords in the piano, the part of the work most immediately savoring of Messiaen — working their way into the finale, as well. The first movement has a thundering piano part confined mostly to the low register, and an urgent, wide-ranging unison string line, cut off suddenly at its height by a clarinet cadenza.
The clarinet, indeed, takes center stage more often than in the Messiaen. The tumultuous opening of the finale even briefly suggests an accompanied recitative, with the clarinet as singer, though soon enough all four instruments are off vigorously pursuing their own material. Harmonically, San Martin’s writing is open and forthright, with occasional glances France-ward (further back than Messiaen, sometimes — I was reminded in places of Milhaud or even Ravel).

Throughout, the scoring seems natural and well-balanced, which is no mean trick with these instrumental forces. Despite the obvious example of the Messiaen, the less-obvious one of Hindemith’s 1938 Quartet, and the onetime prominence of Tashi, the new-music clarinet/violin/cello/piano quartet formed in the early ’70s precisely to play the Messiaen, this scoring has nothing like the currency of the “Pierrot ensemble” (which adds a flute) in new-music circles, and I imagine it’s because the latter, pairing winds and strings, is simpler to score for. Objets trouvés shows that this needn’t be so. (Tashi, as it happens, has just reunited to play — what else? — the Quatuor pour le Fin du temps in honor of the Messiaen centenary. Time to send someone a score?)

The musical adventure (listen to a recording of the concert) was enhanced by the ensemble’s new venue, the easily accessed by auto Acalanes Performing Arts Theater in Lafayette. Some might declare the lobby of the multipurpose theater high school déclassé, and the auditorium a bit short on reverberation time. I myself found the sound extremely clear and direct, with none of the deadness and lifeless highs associated with Herbst Theatre (to name but one example).

Once the air conditioning issue is addressed, so that patrons can be as warm as the music they’re hearing, the classical community would be wise to investigate the space as a concert venue.

GCCP’s members seem fluid. Besides Freund-Striplen, none of the players on this concert performed at the ensemble’s season opener in February. Nonetheless, there was no lack of cohesion or plodding paint-by-numbers approach that would suggest a thrown-together group. It’s a shame that only 75 or so people, no doubt including family members of the youthful Acalanes Chamber Singers, came out for the evening. (Note: A recording of the concert is available from GCCP.)

Underpowered Playing of Ravel

The ensemble’s take on Ravel was stronger on grace than power. First violinist Mariya Borozina immediately stood out for her fineness of line and sweetness, but rarely spoke in the primary colors listeners hear in orchestral versions of the Mother Goose suite. In the third movement, “Homely Little Girl, Empress of the Chinese Dolls,” she managed to sound a bit like a country western fiddler while only minimally underscoring Ravel’s chinoiserie.

The high point was the fourth movement, “Conversations of Beauty and the Beast,” in which wispy, mysterious, and ultimately magical playing made me feel I was peering through a child’s glass globe into a world of delight.

Borozina’s blend with Freund-Striplen’s occasionally pungent viola, Eric Sung’s consistently warm and ingratiating cello (made by Alessando D’espine in Turin ca. 1820), and Ken Miller’s self-effacing bass was exemplary. A tip of the proverbial hat to pianist Keisuke Nakagoshi. Playing a six-foot Boston Steinway, Nakagoshi everywhere employed an extremely fluid, sensitively shaded touch that never overpowered the strings.

Before launching into Bolcom’s Fairy Tales, Freund-Striplen commented that she had never before played in the “really weird combo” of viola, cello, and bass. She’s probably not alone in that respect, judging by the absence of a recording listing on arkivmusic.com. The music for the six pieces, based on favorite fairy tales of Bolcom’s friends, is witty and droll, with a dark and lumbering “Silly March I & II,” some eerie high tones from the viola, a strong and lurking bass in “The Frog Prince” (complete with ribbet-ribbet sounds), and other simulated effects. High art or light art, it’s the kind of music we need more of.

Musical Enigma Wrapped in Hebrew

Given the lamentable omission of both translations and program notes, there’s no way to know the details of Whitacre’s beautiful 5 Hebrew Love Songs (to poems by his wife, high soprano Hila Plitmann). What was apparent was the fine, meaty tone of second violinist Candace Guirao, who, in her first appearance of the evening, had a rare opportunity to sing out alone.

Although conductor Bruce Lengacher’s young singers occasionally faltered on entrances, the sopranos sang angelically, with the young men not far behind. Kudos to the unidentified female soloist, soprano Yvette Dickson, for the beautiful voice and expression she brought to “Eyze sheleg!” (What snow!). This song was most special, with fascinating bum-bum-bums sounding like buzzing bees, and some wonderful violin effects. Especially touching and sacred was the final song, “Rakut” (Tenderness), with its heartfelt ending.

After reasonably priced toxic cookies at intermission came the main fare, Robert Schumann’s great Piano Quintet, Op. 44. If attention kept being drawn to Nakagoshi’s wonderfully sonorous, plangent pianism, this was due to its extreme musicality and warmth, as well as the instrument’s ideal resonance. The second movement march wanted more yearning, and the Scherzo more playful scampering (though the ending was fabulous). At least there was consistency, since the final Allegro seemed a bit heavy and plodding.

Although Borozina finally played full out, her tone lacked the singing core and heartfelt vibrancy that Schumann’s often-exuberant music demands. The rest of the ensemble performed quite well, even if the performance ultimately failed to scale the heights.

Regardless, such “yes, buts” are no more than passing footnotes to a rewarding evening of fantasy and love. Given the ensemble’s promised menu for its June 1 concert — Trout by Schubert and the entire kitchen sink by Martinů — here’s hoping more people will make their way to Moraga’s St. Mary’s College in Contra Costa’s Gold Coast.

The afternoon opened with Beethoven’s Serenade in D Major, Op. 25, for flute, violin, and viola, followed by Kirke Mechem’s Divertimento, Op. 12 (1972), for flute and string trio. Then, following intermission, came Jean Françaix’s Quintette (1988) for flute, two violins, cello, and harpsichord, and John Rutter’s Suite Antique (1979) for flute, harpsichord, and seven strings.

Flutist Alexandra Hawley, a founder of the group, was featured throughout, with violinists Roy Malan, Susan Freier, and Claude Halter; violist Paul Hersh; cellist Stephen Harrison; bassist Ken Miller; and harpsichordist Teresa Yu as partners.

Mechem (b. 1925) has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in the Bay Area, and is most notably famous for his operas, especially his much-performed setting of Moliere’s Tartuffe. As heard in his flute Divertimento, the style goes down easily, like much of the school of Paris-trained American composers of the 1930s and ’40s … à la Walter Piston or David Diamond.

Mechem’s four movements all smile elegantly at your ears, without revealing any hint of dark emotions (as befits a musical diversion). It’s a charm machine, subtly packed with fresh ideas of instrumentation and few genuflections to contrapuntal niceties. The virtuoso musicians of Avedis tossed it off in such a way as to make it sound easy, a thing I doubt. Fun was certainly had by all.

Unmemorable, Even if Mozartian

Françaix’s 16-minute quintet follows the traditional four-movement plan, with the harpsichord serving as a kind of continuo — that is, supporting the other four musicians rather than as an equal soloist. The work reinforces the composer’s nickname of “The French Mozart.” Here and there, Françaix (1912-1997) made a naughty gesture toward Ravel’s Quartet, particularly in his Scherzo, but only in passing.

On the other hand, the Quintette didn’t achieve quite the memorable tunes so typical of Françaix’s early works, like the piano Concertino, with its frequent blushes of sarcasm.

Beethoven’s oddly scored D-Major Serenade — no low-voiced instruments here — was clearly intended as house music. It’s likely the lightest music the composer ever set to paper (at least, I can’t think of a better claimant). Brilliantly played by Hawley, Malan, and Hersh, the piece caused the audience dam to burst into applause a few times for individual movements. (The program listed seven movements, but the sixth constitutes little more than a brief introduction to the finale.)

I can’t say that I have ever heard so much intelligent artistry applied so lavishly to this piece as I heard on Sunday afternoon. Bravos to Hawley, Malan, and Hersh!

Treading a Middle Path

That leaves the problem child of the concert, Rutter’s Suite Antique. Scored for flute, harpsichord, two each of violins and violas, one cello, and one bass, it might have been intended for string orchestra. Don’t know. Rutter is, of course, an extremely successful composer and arranger, but largely of choral music.

In line with his concern for commercial success, the composer takes no chances. He seems anxious primarily with the need to avoid the slightest offense. So nothing strays from the familiar, and indeed, many listeners could probably pick up hints of other popular compositions. The opening Prelude, for example, comes perilously close to quoting the melodic outline of the (spurious) Albinoni Adagio outright.

It’s entertaining music of a sort, provided you’re not expecting something in the way of a fresh idea or two. There’s no sense of climax in the work, no feeling of architectural direction. It just sort of sits there, smiling like one of those smiling-voiced television commercials. I can only suppose that Avedis chose it to end the program simply because it called for the largest number of instruments.

The audience made a show of polite applause, gave the performers one bow, and that was that. There were no encores on this particular Mother’s Day, not even a bouquet.

To mark the occasion, Mayor Gavin Newsom even issued a keys-to-the-city proclamation that declared April 20 to be “Beaux Arts Trio Day in San Francisco.” I don’t know about the day, but it was surely the Trio’s night, for it played an exceptionally subtle program, even by its traditionally high standards.

Beaux Arts Trio

The Trio, which was founded in 1955, opened the program with Dvořák’s Trio in E Minor, Op. 90, “Dumky.” (Listen here.) Following intermission came György Kurtág’s Work for Piano Trio, a brief piece played twice in a row, before Schubert’s big Trio No. 2 in E-flat Major, Op. 100 (a substitute for the Trio No. 1, Op. 99); the Beaux Arts simply thought the more somber Op. 100 was appropriate to the occasion.

The audience was beside itself with appreciation and plaudits, as the musicians responded with a generous spread of encores. (More on that later.) Those multiple standing ovations were for once thoroughly deserved.

Exquisite Beauty

Obviously, the one unusual occurrence was the four-minute Kurtág Work. I’ve always admired Kurtág’s music, at least that which I’ve heard. His music is original, soft-core 12-tone, and essentially lyrical. Born in Romania in 1926, he studied both in his homeland and in Budapest and Paris — with Milhaud and Messiaen.

We don’t hear enough of his music, but that’s because he concentrated on short pieces for chamber music combinations. In that sense, his output is like Anton Webern’s. As far as I can tell, he hasn’t written any music for large orchestra, nor any full operas or ballets.

But make no mistake, this music is exquisitely beautiful in its dainty way. About the nearest comparison in sound would be the music of Morton Feldman. Pianist Menahem Pressler spoke to the audience, telling us that, due to its brevity, the Trio would play the piece, then repeat it. As far as I’m concerned, three times would have been even better. (The program booklet contained no notes on the piece, but I’d assume it was written specifically for the Beaux Arts.)

Ukrainian in origin, the “dumka” form got taken up in Poland and Bohemia only during the 19th century. (Dvořák’s “Dumky” uses the plural form of “dumka.”) It’s a compound rhapsodic form consisting of alternating laments and lively dance bits. The original idea stemmed from concepts of epic folk poetry, which partly accounts for the various solo recitatives for the two string instruments. “Epic” is certainly the word for Sunday’s performance.

Fabled Playing

The expressive taste displayed during solo passages, begun by cellist Antonio Meneses and followed by violinist Daniel Hope, was highlighted by flawless intonation and the Beaux Arts’ fabled range of adroit dynamics. Every little element was right on target.

All this was typical of the Schubert performance, as well. The balances and sense of proportion amid the three musicians seemed nearly telepathic. Their feel for perfect ensemble playing was almost spooky.

Why the Trio is giving up touring at this stage of perfection is puzzling. Pianist Pressler, now 84, has lost none of his considerable virtuosity. He played as well as he ever did, in a style highlighted by a sensitivity to timbre and a beauty of tone that rivals the best of that sort of playing. Bravura passages achieved a near-orchestral sheen, free of percussive attacks. And the little pearly rivulets in the Schubert figurations were like twinkles in the night sky. Pressler’s loss to live concerts performances, and indeed the Trio’s, is a regretful event indeed.

A bountiful set of encores began with the Scherzo of Shostakovich’s Second Trio. As Pressler was announcing the second, he cautioned that were not going to play the remainder of that Trio, whereupon someone in the rear yelled out, “Why not?”

Instead, the Trio played the zesty finale of Haydn’s Trio No. 7. Two encores are the norm, but, as Pressler noted, “We can’t leave without playing Beethoven.” The result was a lovely reading of the Adagio from Beethoven’s Trio No. 4, the Op. 11.

So all right, this marks the end of a great ensemble. Yet the Beaux Arts Trio has left us a rich legacy of recordings, which include virtually the entire trio repertory, minus a few 20th-century pieces. Even so, they’ll be mightily missed by those who delight in high artistry.

The Juilliard String Quartet, revered relics of a previous generation and a vanishing style, are still kickin’ after all these years. Wednesday night at Dinkelspiel Auditorium, presented by Stanford Lively Arts, it played with a rough passion I’ve only heard on old recordings of the Budapest String Quartet. The quartet is unapologetic about sliding, scratching, and simply laying into its players’ fine instruments.

Juilliard String Quartet

Many of today’s younger quartets, especially when playing Haydn or Mozart, worry and fret about producing an immaculate sound. Some fall into the trap of “period performance” as an overarching and finalizing principle. They handle the music of Haydn with oven mitts, afraid to really grip the music, lest they break its fragile shell.

But the Juilliard Quartet comes equipped with boxing gloves instead, unafraid to find out what the music really has to offer. Haydn’s Op. 76, No. 6, offers plenty: theme and variations for a first movement in E-flat, a second movement marked “Fantasia” that goes to B major and beyond, a presto Menuetto with a middle section marked “Alternativo” instead of the usual “Trio,” and a typically tricky Haydn finale. All movements featured unabashed and uncompromising attacks by the Juilliard, especially the Menuetto. Joel Smirnoff’s ruthless articulation made it feel like a bumpy, sweaty, and sensuous dance, rather than the reserved, stately little steps to which it is usually restricted. It was a most Romantic interpretation of Haydn.

Those boxing gloves came in especially handy for Elliott Carter’s second quartet. Second violinist Ronald Copes, especially, could have used some sort of finger protection for a brutal load of pizzicato strikes. Violist Samuel Rhodes explained, with musical examples from the stage, that the piece features a quartet of characters, with individual personalities, duking it out over the course of the drama. If only it were that simple.

Not Getting Carter

The quartet comes from the 1950s, a time when composers seemed to try their damnedest to make their music as incomprehensible as possible. As if lack of a set tonality isn’t enough to alienate listeners, simultaneous conflicting tempos and a deliberate avoidance of everything that might be recognizable further complicate matters. The Carter work’s strategic position, between Haydn and Verdi, to foil would-be escapees, speaks volumes.

Like the Juilliard Quartet, Carter is a musician of the previous generation. As Carter, at 99, is still alive (the Juilliard Quartet premieres his clarinet quintet in New York later this year), we must still consider him a contemporary composer. Most 21st-century music, however, is a good deal more audience-friendly, while still managing to stay complex and original.

Composers of Carter’s ilk, however, still have to be buttressed by the likes of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, or some other dead guy. This isn’t to say that there isn’t quality music and expression in Carter’s pieces; just to say that after 50 years, his music is still extremely difficult to understand and appreciate, even among knowledgeable and curious listeners.

“I don’t know whether the Quartet is beautiful or ugly,” said Verdi of his one and only chamber work, “but I do know that it’s a quartet!” Given the lack of nonvocal works in Verdi’s oeuvre, his mastery of instrumental form is surprising. Verdi’s own doubts about the beauty of the piece may have arisen from its many awkward moments, where the entire quartet is sent on gnarly, unison, sixteenth-note runs.

The Juilliard took these flourishes in stride, realizing them as transitions between the gems that are Verdi’s gift: vocal melodies. Joel Smirnoff did his best soprano impression, while the rest of the quartet accompanied him with the grace and color of a top-notch pit orchestra. In the scherzo movement’s trio section, the quartet’s other Joel, Mr. Krosnick, delivered a tenor aria worthy of Pavarotti. The cello sound carried a commanding yet loving presence. It is the heart of the piece, and was the highlight of the concert.

The Quartet concludes with a fugue on par with the finale of Beethoven’s Op. 59, No. 3. The Juilliard Quartet showed off with spiccato bowing that was virtuosic and dazzling, if not always matching from person to person.

“Imagine that is Pauline Viardot writing that!” exclaimed host and narrator Marilyn Horne after soprano Melody Moore had done a wonderful job in bringing Viardot’s dramatic Scéne d’Hermione to life. So powerful was the music that we all nodded our heads in agreement. It was only one of the several Viardot works on the generous program, whose drama and passion Tchaikovsky and Chopin might have recognized as equal to their own.

Thanks to Horne’s awe-inspiring gifts as a raconteur — abetted (it seems) by a diminutive prompting screen spied by a balcony attendee — and the equally inspiring gifts of the performing musicians (who included, in a brief quartet, Horne herself), our appreciation of Viardot’s gifts grew. We already knew that she had been the vocal toast of Europe, for whose instrument and “unearthly technique” Meyerbeer wrote Le Prophète (”the hardest music I ever sang,” said Horne), Brahms wrote the Alto Rhapsody, and Berlioz revived Gluck’s Orphée and Alceste.

From Horne we learned that Viardot was also the pianist whom Saint-Saëns proclaimed the equal of Clara Schumann, the salon host who brought together the continent’s literary greats, and the uncredited genius who helped Gounod write Sappho and Berlioz write Les Troyens. But as a composer, she was handicapped by the fact that she was a woman composing in the 19th century. Thus her songs and operettas were basically neglected during her lifetime and for at least 60 years after her death.

Remarkable Sisters Rediscovered

Then the tide began to shift. First came Horne’s recently remastered Souvenir of a Golden Era. Inspired by London Records’ Terry McEwen, this major tribute to the repertoire of Viardot and her younger sister, Maria Malibran (the two were called “the Sisters Garcia”), drew renewed attention to Viardot (listen online). Further attention was drawn to the clan when von Stade revived the mezzo version of La Sonnambula that Bellini arranged for Maria Malibran. (I still recall Flicka sleepwalking on the San Francisco Opera set, singing with rare grace.)

Then came recordings of Viardot’s music by Cecilia Bartoli and Isabel Bayrakdarian. Finally, in its third appearance and second incarnation, we have “Pauline Viardot and Friends.” The program is also available on CD in an Opera Rara live recording from Wigmore Hall that includes some significant — not for the better — cast changes.

Which takes us to the evening itself. Director Lotfi Mansouri set the stage, approximating with elegant simplicity an intimate salon: lovely chair and flower-set table on the left for Horne, backed by a tastefully patterned screen; Peter Grunberg’s polished piano in the middle, with room for cellist Emil Miland’s two appearances; and three chairs and table (with flowers and water) on the right for the three vocalists, backed by the obligatory potted palm.

Filling the first chair was a radiant blonde, Horne, who recently survived chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery for pancreatic cancer. (She also credits her recovery to daily sessions of hypnotherapy.) The picture of health (despite a sore throat), she looked resplendent in a bright red dress and sequined cape. Soon she was followed by Vladimir Chernov, handsome with longish gray hair and a modern rendition of black-tie formality; von Stade, glamorous as all get out; and Moore, more simply attired.

The singing was major. Von Stade’s vocal production remains admirably steady, her hollow, low sounds heart-touchingly profound, the highs strong and ringing. At her incomparable best in the softer-voiced Die Sterne (The stars), she projected the first line with ravishing, transfixing beauty. Describing a motionless, mystical moment gazing at the stars, her wondrous, show-stopping performance was breathtakingly mesmerizing.

Chernov is another great artist. So masterful that he made Viardot’s vocally challenging Russian-language songs sound easy, he sang with elegance and restraint. Turning on his abundant charm, Chernov capped the opening Dve rozy (Two roses) with a gorgeous, sweet high falsetto. Elsewhere, he darkened his tone as required, sweetening at the end of phrases only when appropriate, and hinting at his preeminence as a Verdi baritone by opening up with hall-filling drama at the end of the final song. You could sense snarl and menace in his blood, but mostly he closed his eyes to purr up the paramour and the pussycat.

A Surprising Melody

“I knew that Flicka and Vladimir were great,” said Horne, “but Melody is the surprise for me.” As she was for many of us. Despite her embrace of heavier rep — Gluck’s Divinités du Styx (Gods of the Styx) is, after all, Eileen Farrell and Kirsten Flagstad territory — I hear Moore’s voice at this point as basically lyric with spinto pretensions. There is a dramatic darkness to the lower range, and the always secure, easily voiced highs can open with impressive, quasi-spectacular color, but the dramatic weight (let alone the Flagstadian grandeur and Hina Spani-like glamour) are not (yet?) there.

Given some of the hardest, most demanding songs of the evening, Moore sang wonderfully, with a rock-steady, healthy tone throughout the range. Her beautiful final solo Ici-bas tous les Lilas meurent (Down here all the lilacs die) displayed abundant lyric gifts that I hope are not lost in a push toward bigness.

Grunberg was more than the ideally supportive accompanist and music director. His perfectly postured, handsome countenance steadily beamed volumes of appreciation as Horne conquered her newest role with awesome ease. Emil Miland was the droll cellist-trickster, playing wonderfully, the foil of Flicka’s gags, the icing on the cake.

What great artists and music. Special thanks to producer Judy Flannery, writer Georgia Smith, music researcher Marta Johansen, and project advisor Clifford Cranna for helping create this extraordinary evening. I’m still vibrating from the experience.

Janaki String Trio

Cantor Roslyn Barak, artistic director of Temple Emanu-El’s Music at Meyer concert series, introduced the trio’s recital Monday evening by remarking that she’d looked into inviting the ensemble after reading an enthusiastic review of its Carnegie Hall debut in The New York Times. Now that the trio has a direct link to the Bay Area — Katie Kadarauch, a Bay Area native, was named associate principal violist of the San Francisco Symphony last year — we can expect to hear news of it less circuitously. On the basis of Monday’s recital, I for one hope it makes frequent return visits.

The string trio repertoire is tiny, but what is there is of remarkably high quality. Then you can always commission new works. (The Janakis are already on their third commission, a forthcoming trio by Pierre Jalbert.) And by adding a guest artist you have access to the large body of piano quartets, string/wind quartets, and other things — the Janakis have already programmed Arensky’s second string quartet, scored for the odd combination of violin, viola, and two cellos. Add it all up and you have a repertoire out of which an enterprising ensemble can make a substantial, if slightly ramshackle, career.

Schubertian Surprises

The Janaki recital began with Schubert’s one full-length string trio, the B-flat-Major D. 581. (There’s also a single-movement torso in the same key.) D. 581 is a piece that has blindsided generations of amateur chamber musicians. The first three movements are brief, charming, and eminently sight-readable for players of moderate ability. Then comes a finale that starts with one of those innocent, cute-as-a-button Schubert themes — think of the second item in the Rosamunde incidental music — and then proceeds to throw at the players an obstacle course’s worth of wickedly unreasonable technical demands. One moment the sky is clear and the water calm, the next you’re fighting for your life in a raging sea of sextuplets in some ungodly flat key.

In such situations it’s nice to have top-notch, conservatory-honed, chops. The Janaki threesome barely broke a sweat. Indeed, violinist Serena McKinney tossed off the various swirls and runs with visible glee. The playing was as buoyant and stylish as it had been through the rest of the piece: glossy, lithe, and brimful with easy charm.

The same could be said of the trio’s performance, postintermission, of the string trio genre’s one unquestioned masterpiece, Mozart’s E-flat Divertimento, K. 563. Here, though, there were places where it all sounded a little too easy. There was a certain refined breeziness, a musical flow so genial and so effortless as to smooth over the piece’s strains and resistances.

Part of the problem was an internal balance that was deferential to a fault. The players subordinated “accompanimental” material almost to the point of self-parody in places. Some violin and viola chords in the first Menuetto were composed chiefly of air, apparently so as not to cover the cello. Even the leading lines, though, tended to over-refinement.

Finely Matched Players

Cellist Arnold Choi is a lovely player, and it was a pleasure to hear even this murderously difficult part dispatched with such liquid, mellifluous ease. But I kept waiting for him to play genuinely full out, and it never happened. There was always a sense of tone held back, made more frustrating by the fact that you could easily imagine what he would sound like if he let loose.

No one could say the same of Kadarauch, who made the most of the viola’s many moments in the sun. What a strikingly dark, characterful sound hers is. I hope we can look forward to her making an occasional appearance on the Symphony’s chamber programs. McKinney, for her part, is a fleet and elegant violinist who nonetheless can light into passagework with great ferocity. The way she zipped through the sixteenths in the Mozart’s finale almost made the Janakis’ recklessly fast tempo a success.

The trio omitted all repeats in the first two movements of the Mozart, which seems to me a mistake, despite the work’s greath length (50 minutes, with repeats). Still, the exposition repeats, at least, are standard practice. Barak, however, mentioned in her introduction that the players “had a plane to catch at 11,” which could explain the cuts. (Kadarauch, certainly, had to meet up with her symphony colleagues in New York for the opening concert of their tour the following evening.)

In between the two older works came Andrew Norman’s 2007 Alabaster Rounds, written for the ensemble. The piece, as McKinney explained to the audience, depicts a sunrise at Rome’s Santa Sabina all’Aventino, a fifth-century basilica whose many windows allow the light to play in intricate patterns on the alabaster walls. The work begins with subtle undulations over an open-fifth drone. The waves increase, separate, rise in ever-widening spirals. At the peak of the music’s intensity, the blinding light vanishes and the viola is left suspended in the heights. It floats serenely back down to earth, where the other two instruments join it in a brief, heterophonic suggestion of plainchant and a murmuring allusion to the piece’s opening.

The work thus has, as McKinney pointed out, much the same arc as Barber’s Adagio for Strings, though the material and the effect are both quite different. According to McKinney, Norman is considering making Alabaster Rounds the nucleus of a larger, multimovement work depicting several Roman buildings. But I find it hard to imagine this dazzling and implacably self-contained musical image working as a part of anything. There’s a reason that the Barber Adagio is a lot better known than the string quartet of which it was originally the second movement.