Solid Start for Chamber Music Palisades

Bright and seasoned professionalism, a palpable dedication to unhackneyed repertory and a sense of community characterize Chamber Music Palisades as it begins a second season. The opening concert, Wednesday night at St. Matthew’s Parish in Pacific Palisades, illustrated the series’ strengths.

The invention last year of chamber music veterans Delores Stevens and Susan Greenberg, the series serves a Westside constituency that Wednesday turned out in good numbers to occupy the 400-seat church sanctuary, one of the more handsome concert-rooms in this area.

The acoustic is wet rather than dry, which can at times be a problem--as it was in a Mozart sonata for violin and piano at this event. But the comfort and general sound clarity of the space make the venue highly attractive.

Pianist Stevens and flutist Greenberg figured prominently in a program of music by Haydn, Mozart, Telemann and Arthur Foote, individually performing with their usual panache and musical projection. But the hardest working of the four performers--each event offers a different personnel roster--was violinist Kathleen Lenski, who played in every piece.

Lenski took charge even when performing secondary functions; she captured each composer’s style and played everything with admirable energy. With Greenberg and cellist Stephen Erdody--Lenski’s colleague in the Angeles Quartet--the violinist delivered many beauties in Haydn’s “London” Trio in C.

With the passionate Stevens and the rich-toned Erdody, Lenski gave Foote’s neglected Trio No. 2 its due in post-Romantic drama. Greenberg and Lenski brought out the many charms of Telemann’s E-minor Sonata, a joyful Baroque romp with no discernible purpose other than pleasure.

Technically wondrous, pianist Stevens plays with equal power and refinement. This time around, however, the huge Steinway she played proved over-resonant and over-resourceful for the room.