Splendid setting and sounds get series off to searing start

A happy and sold-out crowd wafted across the sunny Lakeside School lawns Tuesday evening, into the little St. Nicholas Hall — where more summer sunshine awaited them, in the form of Debussy's shimmering Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp.

To call Tuesday's program a promising start to the 26th annual Summer Festival of the Seattle Chamber Music Society would be a considerable understatement. The evening was full of the attributes that has made this festival such a favorite that the 2007 ticket demand is the greatest in the group's history. Artistic director Toby Saks' programming and choice of personnel gave listeners the kind of variety and expertise that always invigorates an audience.

The Debussy sonata, with Lorna McGhee (flute), Heidi Krutzen (harp) and David Harding (viola), was a particularly happy combination of textures and beautifully balanced sound. It was succeeded by Beethoven's "Ghost" Trio (Op. 70, No. 1), played with fine romantic fervor by Carmit Zori (violin), Robert deMaine (cello) and William Wolfram (piano).

Violinist James Ehnes has recently assumed an important new role with the Seattle Chamber Music Society, as associate artistic director, and he was featured in the program's second half. First came a memorable reading of the familiar "Meditation" from Massenet's "Thaïs," performed with Ehnes' trademark gorgeous sound (and the sensitive partnership of pianist Jeremy Denk) as a memorial to Sam Rubinstein — one of the festival's founding board members. Together with his wife Gladys, Rubinstein was a wise and perennially generous mainstay of the festival.

The searing finale was the Shostakovich Piano Trio of Op. 67, which found all three musicians — Ehnes, Denk and cellist Ronald Thomas — at a fever pitch of intensity. Thomas had some uncharacteristic problems with the opening harmonics, but from then on there was nothing left to wish for in a supercharged performance that had each musician playing off the others' strengths. Bravi.

Melinda Bargreen: mbargreen@seattletimes.com