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Religious holidays occur in the context of philosophies favoring the small over the big, the poor over the rich. Accordingly, this report will relegate the usual large and often costly events to an end-of-file roundup. Up front, there will be smaller, less familiar, and less costly events.

Chora Nova made a "Voyage of Discovery" Saturday night to the First Congregational Church in Berkeley, introducing its audience to composers usually encountered mainly in Baroque music workshops.

Halloween has long gone, but Berkeley Symphony music director candidate Paul Haas arrived wearing a disguise Thursday night at Zellerbach Auditorium: that of a competent, careful, and traditional wandsman with barely enough energy befitting his relative youth (37).

It was a grand design for a concert: two string quartets, one relatively young and the other making its farewell tour, playing three new works (one quartet for each, an octet for the two together), with Mendelssohn's beloved Octet to close. But owing to the death of Johannes Quartet violist Choo-Jin Chang's brother early last week, the ensemble's double bill at San Francisco's Herbst Theatre with

Moriz Rosenthal (1862-1946), a great Polish virtuoso and a scathingly acerbic wit, once remarked, on learning that his fellow pianist Artur Schnabel had been rejected by the army as a draftee, "Well, what did you expect? No fingers!" The Brazilian-born pianist Arnaldo Cohen definitely has fingers.

Moments arise when the usual checklist of critical absolutes gets set aside and you just listen and sit back and enjoy. Such was the case at the first of two fall concerts by the San Francisco Bay Area Chamber Choir (SFBACC).

The program at Old First Church on Sunday afternoon was titled "Alla Zingarese," but the program of the Laurel Ensemble actually covered the two principal aspects underlying traditional Hungarian music: the native folk music and the better-known Romany traditions.

Two groups with like-minded ideals visited Stanford University last week. Imani Winds and Miami String Quartet compelled their modest-sized audience in Dinkelspiel Auditorium to join them on a spirited and inspired, if unfamiliar, musical journey. From the first to the last sounding notes both ensembles played brilliantly, with vigor, dedication, and flair.

Mahler's 1910 Eighth Symphony, called by some (but surely not by high-minded musicologists) "Symphony of a Thousand," is among the most massive works in all of music.