Chamber Music

On Valentine’s Day weekend, in four cities, three members of the American Bach Soloists presented a chamber music performance of great variety, including music by such contrasting composers as François Couperin, Heinrich Biber, J.S. Bach, and Arcangelo Corelli. The program selections were a bit disjointed for my taste to say the least, but in the concert I heard Sunday at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco the performers managed to tie things together well enough, balancing fireworks with remarkable poise and an elegant intimacy.

A concert that features only one composer is a fascinating opportunity, not only to get a thorough picture of that composer’s style, but also to track changes in it over time. San Francisco State University’s 60th birthday retrospective of Richard Festinger presented what, to me, seemed like two different approaches to music — yet still in the same basic style. I later noticed that the two perceived methods came from two different time periods: one from the 1990s, the other from last few years.