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Admirers of the Takács Quartet have had it good these past several years, due to the ensemble's two-concerts-a-season relationship with Cal Performances. The quartet's first Bay Area visit in 2009, though, wasn't to Berkeley's Hertz Hall but to Mill Valley's Mount Tamalpais United Methodist Church.

Disappointed that his relatively bland Third Symphony had won the Pulitzer Prize in 1947, Charles Ives called awards "badges of mediocrity." Sometimes that's true, though not always.

Trinity Chamber Concerts in Berkeley presents "the finest of Northern California's emerging musicians." Saturday night's concert was performed by four accomplished, thoroughly emerged performers who have recently come together in an ensemble somewhat ambiguously called Les grâces: Jennifer Paulino, soprano; Annette Bauer, recorders; Rebekah Ahrendt, viola da gamba; and Jonathan Rhodes Lee, harpsic

The cottage industry surrounding how to "properly" interpret J.S. Bach's beloved Suites for Solo Cello sometimes borders on the ridiculous. Like operagoers defending their most beloved divas with delirious fervor, many aficionados blindly swear by their own favorite approach to these remarkable works.

Images filled my head, thanks to the provocative content and sterling performances that characterized Friday's San Francisco Symphony concert. It began with Aaron Copland's extract of music for the 1940 film Our Town, based on Thornton Wilder's famous play about the timeless verities of small-town life in "Grover's Corners" (actually, Peterborough), New Hampshire.

Sunday night, San José's Le Petit Trianon welcomed the San José Chamber Orchestra in a concert refreshingly titled "Ah, Youth!" The program consisted of music both composed and played by youthful talent, and it traveled a bumpy road from the 14-year-old Felix Mendelssohn to the unrelenting dissonances of the 29-year-old Harlan Otter.

The Osiris Trio is not the sort of ensemble that will blow you away with pyrotechnics and dazzling execution, or with overflowing energy. Yet for natural and honest music-making, Osiris provided generously in its Sunday recital at Kohl Mansion in Burlingame. Many of today's best groups seem to leap out of their seats and give 120 percent to grab the audience by the lapels.

It's rare that an interesting new opera simply appears, without the fanfare of commissions and publicity surrounding the premiere. Yet composer Allen Shearer's second opera, The Dawn Makers, is poised to do just that, when it debuts at San Francisco's Herbst Theatre on Feb. 4, conducted by J. Karla Lemon, directed by Brian Staufenbiel, and produced by Composers, Inc.

Haydn's "Farewell" Symphony — the dark, somber one in a weird key (F-sharp minor), which ends with the musicians quietly leaving the stage by ones and twos, until only a pair of violinists are left to finish the piece — is the perfect work to serve as a metaphor for the end of a questionable year.