Reviews

• There's nothing like a commissioned world premiere to make a chamber concert feel like an out-of-the-ordinary event - unless it's a performing ensemble brought together expressly for the occasion. Both were in play during Saturday's largely alluring program presented in Herbst Theatre by Chamber Music San Francisco.
  
  The performers were three renowned soloists - clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, cellist Lynn Harrell and pianist Robert Levin - joining forces on a more or less ad hoc basis. And the evening's centerpiece was Yehudi Wyner's melodious "Trio 2009," written last year for this ensemble.
  
  It certainly sounded like a musical tribute to these particular players, mining the group's ability to blend lyrical strains into a unified yet distinct musical texture. Running 15 minutes in a single span, Wyner's piece proved an amiable and often lovely creation.
  
  If the results aren't especially dramatic, that was surely by intent. Rather, the motivating spirit here is one of free-form fantasy, as the piece unfolds in an unpredictable but gently shifting series of episodes.
  
  Wyner's melodic invention is the main vehicle for the proceedings, and his tunes are shapely, inviting affairs, often backlit by delicate tremolo accompaniments. For contrast, the piano occasionally urges the other two instruments into brisk, dry-eyed flurries that sound like toned-down Prokofiev.
  Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, 15/03/2010