Edgar Meyer’s Classics for Everyday Folk

Many an American composer has grappled with the challenge of weaving indigenous folk music into classical settings. Few have as natural a way with that procedure as Edgar Meyer, the double bassist who has no trouble maintaining dual cultural citizenship in Nashville and the classical sphere.

Meyer’s multiple cultural alliances were on display Sunday afternoon, when he offered the West Coast premiere of an as-yet-untitled trio for clarinet, cello and double bass, the centerpiece in a concert from the estimable Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. In all its down-home-meets-uptown splendor, Meyer’s new piece unfolded in a fitting, if not acoustically ideal, venue. Part of the Da Camera Society of Mount St. Mary College’s Chamber Music in Historic Places series, the concert settled into Patriotic Hall in downtown Los Angeles, built in the mid-1920s.

Echoes of Copland, Minimalism and Bill Monroe, and perhaps a hint of klezmer, pass through the score. Intersecting lines, gracefully tumbling arpeggios, and phrases that can only be called riffs for the strings cleverly underline the clarinet’s cryptic melodic statements. This is not to say, however, that it’s a cheeky stylistic pastiche. Creative logic lines its path.

With this music--performed by Meyer, cellist Gary Hoffman and clarinetist David Shifrin, the group’s artistic director--the composer deploys polyrhythmic ideas and a cerebral approach. These strategies, though, don’t detract from the basic visceral charm and a certain languid beauty. Country music in the chamber? It’s no stretch, given Meyer’s able hands and mind.

The program included a change in personnel: the replacement of violinist Cho-Liang Lin, who recently became a first-time father, with Daniel Phillips, who rose naturally to the occasions of Brahms’ Violin Sonata in A, Opus 100, and Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet. Traces of distraction may have been detected in the Brahms reading. Then again, continuity was disrupted by applause and seating between movements.

Closing the program, the ensemble gave its considerable all to Schubert’s trusty work, with a sunny disposition that complemented the summer-in-February weather outside. Pianist Andre-Michel Schub showed particularly impressive aplomb.