Multi-chamber This weekend offers nearly unprecedented variety BY BECCA DEWAN
	Chamber Weekend Hit these sites for more info: www.pcmf.org + www.saltbaychamberfest.org + www.baychamberconcerts.org + www.kneisel.org

At the movie multiplex, there are options. A drama. A romantic comedy. Maybe an action flick. Usually, if you want to catch some classical music, it’s more like the drive-in: You have to see what’s showing, even if it’s The Bad News Bears. Well this (extended) weekend, August 18 through 23, for all you classical music lovers, Maine will transform into a multiplex of sorts, with classical events from Bay Chamber Concerts, Kneisel Hall, Salt Bay, Portland Chamber Music Festival, and FOKO.

Bay Chamber Concerts’ Summer Music Festival takes place every July and August in the historic Rockport Opera House. This weekend’s concerts explore the Baroque masters. Thursday’s program includes Telemann, Vivaldi, and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5. The next night enjoy Buxtehude, Telemann, and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4. Each concert is preceded by a pre-concert lecture.

Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival is in its 103rd season, putting on 10 concerts in Blue Hill. Pianist — and artist director of the festival — Seymour Lipkin will perform a program of Schubert on Friday and Sunday.

But Bay Chambers and Kneisel Hall are both fairly lengthy chamber music festivals. Perhaps you’ve already sampled and are ready for something different? Well, Salt Bay Chamberfest and Portland Chamber Music Festival (PCMF) are both festivals that take place over only two weekends — which happen to coincide this year.

Salt Bay Chamberfest was started by Wilhelmina Smith in 1995. Smith envisioned chamber music idealism: bringing together the best musicians under the best circumstances playing the best music. Salt Bay performances are held at the Darrows Barn at Round Top Center for the Arts in Damariscotta, as nice a venue as you’ll find in Maine.

Friday’s concert features the Brentano String Quartet performing three pieces. Johannes Brahms’s Vier ernste Gesänge, Op. 121 was published at the end of the composer’s life in 1896. Written for mezzo-soprano and piano, the texts draw from bible verses dealing with extreme pessimism and intense love. Next is a piece by Richard Danielpour, a contemporary American composer often described as "neo-romantic," but who draws influences from a range of musical genres. His piano trio A Child’s Reliquary, composed just six years ago, will be performed. A gorgeously somber piece, last on the program is Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 15 in E flat minor.

Three great pieces. And that’s just one concert! There’s more.

Tuesday’s concert juxtaposes two octets. Franz Schubert and Paul Hindemith are both great composers of their time (the early 19th and 20th centuries, respectively), but hardly would one normally call them bedfellows. By ignoring the traditional four-movement structure, and opting for six movements in his octet, Schubert harks back to an earlier tradition of divertimenti, or "outdoor" music. The later movements of this work are quite light and bouncy, in keeping with the divertimenti atmosphere. Hindemith gets even wackier, having explored tonality and harmony both as a composer and as a theorist. His octet will surely be a contrast to Schubert’s relatively tame offering.

Moving closer to home base, the Portland Chamber Music Festival began in 1994 and has been growing in size and popularity. While dedicated to performing new works, PCMF offers a wide variety of music from different composers and eras. Each concert begins at 8 pm in the Ludcke Auditorium on the Westbrook College Campus in Portland.

Thursday’s concert includes Rossini’s Sonata No. 3 in C major, Elliott Schwartz’s Tapestries, and Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence String Sextet.

Saturday’s performance includes Beethoven’s "Ghost" Piano Trio, Shiver by David Horne, and Dvorak’s String Sextet.

In each of these programs is a "major" work by commonly recognizable composers and then a piece most of the general public will have never heard. Something to pique your interest and something to expand your horizons — good programming!

Elliott Schwartz (b. 1936) is a professor at Bowdoin College, about whom you should have read here in the past. He has written many pieces for tape and instruments, and established himself in the 1960s and ’70s as an innovative and eclectic composer. Tapestries (1996) is for piano trio.

Scottish composer David Horne (b. 1970) studied at the Curtis Institute and then earned his doctorate at Harvard, where he is now a lecturer. He composed Shiver for piano and strings in 1998; the piece was in fact premiered in Portland on August 21, 1998. Two of the original performers are once again at the PCMF: Laurence Neuman and Judith Gordon.

Horne writes on his Web site about the piece: "So, while my title refers to the tiny splinter of a theme used as the piece’s material (as is the lesser known meaning of shiver — to splinter or shatter), it also refers to the initial character of that theme, i.e. shivering, as if with cold. Throughout the piece, the listener will hear various allusions to this, as various instruments almost seem to shake and tremble in response to the razor sharp ‘bites’ of the thematic material."

Thursday: PCMF, Friday: Salt Bay, Saturday: PCMF, Tuesday: Saltbay. How’s that for a schedule? And if you want something a bit more "kid-friendly," check out the family concert Sunday afternoon put on by PCMF.

Becca DeWan can be reached at beccadewan@mac.com