Music of Haydn, Brahms and Bartok opens the final week of the Seattle Chamber Music Festival at Lakeside

It may be a little early to get out the handkerchiefs to say goodbye to Lakeside School, which has been home to the Seattle Chamber Music Festival for nearly 30 years. At the time of its beginnings, this quasi-pastoral setting in north Seattle was as much a novelty in the summer cultural life of Seattle as the festival itself. The setting and concerts established all sorts of local precedents. From that modest two-weeks of concerts, the festival grew to include a winter festival and an Eastside branch at Overlake School in Redmond.

Now, Lakeside wants to reclaim St. Nicholas Hall for its own programs, and the festival has to move. After months of searching every possible venue in the city, it decided to use its winter home, Nordstrom Recital Hall, in the Benaroya Hall complex. Of course, the festival wants to replicate what it has at Lakeside in terms of seating capacity — more seats not fewer — ambience, acoustics, etc. There is none of the languid summer air about Nordstrom, located in the heart of the city, but the size is perfect, about 100 seats larger than St. Nicholas, and the acoustics vastly superior. To try to make the celebrated al fresco dining at Lakeside a kind of reality at Benaroya, the Garden of Remembrance on Second Avenue — thank you Patsy Collins who underwrote the major cost of the park with little fanfare — will be used, with Wolfgang Puck in the kitchen. The concerts will be broadcast to those in the garden from the hall free of charge.

The campus was part of the charm of the festival certainly, but I will miss it only moderately. I suspect the musicians who have had to deal with the poor acoustics of St. Nicholas, probably less so. Toby Saks, founding artistic director, said Monday night, she will miss the whole of Lakeside for sentimental reasons. But the new setting will most likely attract new audiences, who do not want to make the trek to the Lakeside campus. As Lakeside was one chapter, Nordstrom will be another.

Music of Haydn, Brahms and Bartok comprised the program Monday night. I am grateful for any Haydn we get to hear. The great composer wrote so much splendid chamber music that is not adequately represented on chamber music programs. The Haydn Piano Trio in E-flat (Hob. HV:22) is the second piano trio of his played this summer. Its advocates were Stephen Rose, violin; Toby Saks, cello, and Adam Neiman, piano. It was a good group of musicians. The piano is given the leading voice, and the violin the second. Neiman found the right mix between being a soloist and a member of an ensemble. He played with style and flourish. Rose has a sweet tone and a sure grasp of the essentials, which he put to good advantage. Saks was asked to provide support to her colleagues, which she did.

Violinist Stephan Jackiw is one of the bright young musicians James Ehnes, associate artistic director of the festival, has imported. He is a superb musician, full of fresh ideas and a huge technique, all of which he put to good use in Brahms’ Violin Sonata in A. There is much rich material for the soloist to explore in this familiar work, which Jackiw did with aplomb and accuracy as well as flair. Steven Lowe, in his program notes, quotes the one-word characterization of the sonata by Brahms’ good friend, Elizabeth von Herzogenberg — “caress.” That also is an apt description of Jackiw’s reading.

Written in 1904, Bartok’s Piano Quintet is an early work: The composer was barely in this 20s. It is little like his later work, which is part of its charm. One hears hints of the past and a few hints of the future. New to the festival this year, it is not hard to understand why Saks did not rush to have the piece performed previously. The composer was not quite up to length of the work. It drifts, sometimes lazily so, about the universe and that gets tiresome, particularly in the latter half of the piece, where he seems to be struggling to sustain the creativity found in the earlier half. However, there are plenty of good ideas, and it is fascinating to hear the young Bartok at work. Its proponents were exemplary. One could not ask for more, either in terms of the depth of their musicianship, ensemble or technical virtues. They were Soovin Kim and Erin Keefe, violin; Richard O’Neill, viola; Ronald Thomas, cello, and Adam Neiman, piano.

The festival closes its Lakeside season Friday night, then moves to Overlake School Aug. 5 for five concerts, ending Aug. 14.