Chamber music in Fresno charms with its intimacy

Two very different recent experiences of chamber music in Fresno:

I'm sitting in the sanctuary of Fresno's Westminister Presbyterian Church for a concert by the chamber group Moment Musical. The golden tones of the solo French horn played by Jennie Blomster fill the room, anchored by the steady, jaunty presence of Alan Rea's piano. The Faure piece they're playing is an intriguing instrumental combination: the horn sounding like it wants to extend beyond the confines of the sanctuary and out into the sky, the piano playfully tugging it back to Earth. I sit back in the pew and let the sound fill my brain and, more important, my soul. It's my most relaxing moment of the week.

It's a week later, and the venue is Fresno State's Wahlberg Recital Hall, where the Orpheus chamber ensemble is staging a concert that would probably surprise those who think that chamber music consists entirely of string quartets playing to audiences who remember World War II. At the moment, three dancers from the In the Spotlight Dance Studio, dressed in simple black rehearsal garb, are performing to a spoken-text piece by Fresno-born composer Charles Amirkhanian. As the words "bandit" and "rainbow" repeat in a disquieting and almost abrasive loop, the dancers extend their limbs into sharp, brief snapshots of angst and action. Not a soothing violin within 200 meters.

The most important thing, perhaps, to know about chamber music is this: There's a tremendous variety. You can go to a concert filled to the brim with Haydn and Mozart one night, then settle in to a raucous zydeco-and-blues set the next.

A little background here. Realize that some chamber-music ensembles are akin to a rock band in terms of organization: They're standard "groups" with set players. These groups might bring in occasional guest artists to augment the core players, but mostly the musicians pick music that corresponds to the instruments they play. Examples are such internationally known groups as the Alexander String Quartet, which performed in Fresno last October, and such local ensembles as the newly founded Fresno State Trio, which consists of Andreas Werz on piano, Thomas Loewenheim on violin and Limor Toren-Immerman on violin.

Then there are chamber music groups that are almost like umbrella organizations. Moment Musical and Orpheus in the Fresno area fall into this category, as does Musica Viva, a group that's making its mark by performing all over the Valley. These groups have a core roster of members, but they don't all play in each song or even in each concert. That way there's a lot of freedom in terms of programming. One song might feature a standard woodwind quintet, say, and the next might feature two pianos. Or perhaps you might end up listening to an entire chamber orchestra.

(Some venues, such as the First Congregational Church, often bring in various players for concerts, acting in a way like umbrella organizations of their own.)

The term "chamber music" itself is pretty broad. Generally speaking, it's music composed for a small group of instruments. Way back when, that meant a group that could fit into a palace "chamber." In chamber music, there's usually just one instrument on a part, compared with the dozens of violins, say, that you'd find in a symphony orchestra. Each player is much more exposed.

Composers over the centuries love to experiment with different instruments in small ensembles, delighting in the distinctive sounds that odd pairings can produce.

The age of the music performed can vary wildly as well. (Orpheus once advertised a concert as covering "three and a half thousand years of music," kicking the program off with a piece for harp and guitar that was found written on clay tablets.) The Baroque and Romantic periods often are well represented. But you can also hear world premieres of works just a few months old.