As if classical music in general didn't have a snooty enough reputation, there is one branch of classical music that boasts supreme snob appeal: chamber music.
It actually isn't hard for timid souls to penetrate the circle of connoisseurs who value chamber works as music's most refined form of expression. Forget chamber music's country club image and just sit down, pay attention and enjoy it.
Perhaps the best way to get started is with the music of Johannes Brahms.
First, some definitions are in order. Chamber music was originally designed to be played in chambers, or small rooms. Until about 100 years ago, most of it was designed for good amateurs to play in their homes for a small circle of friends.
During the past century, music has gotten more difficult and amateurs have become fewer. Today it's more common to hear chamber music in small halls, played to two or three hundred people.
Solo pieces such as piano sonatas are usually not counted as chamber music. An important element of the genre is the conviviality of a shared performance, a few friends making music together.
Neither does that entity known as the chamber orchestra count as a true chamber ensemble. Here's a rule of thumb: Chamber music has one player to a part. If a piece needs two or more musicians to play the same melody, it usually isn't chamber music.
Another guideline: If there's no common word for the number of people playing, the group probably isn't playing chamber music.
Start out with the least number possible - dues or duets, which could be two instruments of any type. Next up are trios, the most usual variety being the piano trio - not three pianos, but piano, violin and cello. Composers have written for this combination since the late 18th century.
A quartet can consist of any four players, but the most popular kind is strings only: two violins, viola and cello. Nearly every important composer has written at least one string quartet, and some have written far more than that. Beethoven produced 16, and Haydn penned literally dozens.
Put five people together and you have a quintet. A wind quintet consists of flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon. Unfortunately, none of the pre-1900 composers in the classical Top 40 bothered to write for this wonderful combo.
There is also the brass quintet - two trumpets, horn, trombone and tuba. This didn't become common until our century, so don't go out looking for brass quintets by Tchaikovsky.
A quintet combination that the so-called Masters dabbled in more often was simply a string quartet plus piano. But Franz Schubert wrote two famous quintets for different groups of instruments. One added a cello to the standard string quartet, and the other, part of it based on his song, ``The Trout,'' was for piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass.
Beyond this point there are really no standard instrumental combinations. A sextet, septet, octet or nonet could include six, seven, eight or nine of anything. Ten is the largest group that has its own name - it's a decet for Latin lovers, or dixtuor for those who prefer the French style. Ten-piece works are extremely rare.
Non-vocal chamber music made its first big splash in England in the early 16th century, when players of string instruments got together in ``consorts.'' Chamber music soon flourished throughout Europe, reaching its peak of popularity in the 18th century. It seemed that everyone with at least modest skill on some instrument was playing Bach, Telemann or Handel pieces in the first half of the century, or Mozart and Haydn in the second half.
In the 19th century, music became more professionalized, big orchestras became more common, the French and Italians developed an opera fixation to the exclusion of all else, and England was too busy building factories to bother with all that musical rubbish.
So Germany became Chamber Music Central in the Romantic era, and there was no finer German composer of chamber music than Johannes Brahms.
Born in the slums of Hamburg in 1833, Brahms was a fine child pianist and played in dockside taverns to support himself during his early teens. As a young adult he made his mark as a composer with a few audacious piano works, then moved to Vienna and solidified his reputation with a series of glorious chamber compositions.
Brahms also distinguished himself in vocal music and wrote four of the world's most beloved symphonies, but his special achievement was in chamber music. There isn't a dud among his surviving scores - not because he wrote only masterpieces, but because he destroyed everything that didn't meet his strict standards. Brahms probably burned more pages of music than he published.
His music adheres to conservative forms that would have been recognized by composers dead before his birth. But following the rules of how to put together a sonata-form movement did not lead to arid music.
Despite all the complicated rhythms, dense counterpoint and involved manipulation of themes, Brahms' chamber music also thrives on long, gorgeous melodies and intense emotion.
Where to begin? His three sonatas for violin and piano and two sonatas for cello and piano exploit the singing lyricism natural to the string instruments, while using the piano as a solid foundation and sometimes an impulsive goad to the strings. Late in his life Brahms also wrote a pair of sonatas for clarinet (or viola) and piano - dark, bittersweet works often described as ``autumnal.''
Brahms completed three piano trios, one in his youth and two as he approached old age. The later two are more compact, but the first trio's sprawling first movement contains one of the composer's finest melodies - noble, yearning and passionate all at once. For a change of pace, Brahms wrote a trio for clarinet, cello and piano and one for horn, violin and piano. Both make good use of the wind instruments' mellow tones.
He allowed three string quartets to survive. Their four-movement structure - the second movement being slow, the rest fast - is modeled on the quartets of Mozart and Haydn, but the Brahms works are built on a vaster scale. The themes are worked over exhaustively, and there are times, particularly when the instruments are playing double-stops (a musician playing notes on two strings at once, instead of one), that the quartets seem to burst with orchestral aspirations.
There are also three quartets and one quintet for piano and strings. At times the piano dominates the ensemble, but for the most part these are marvels of woven instrumental voices. The quintet and first two quartets end with movements inspired by gypsy music.
Gypsy elements also pop up in the second of two quintets for strings only. In contrast, the first string quintet and the second of Brahms' two string sextets are clotted in texture and turgid in mood. They might not appeal to someone who prefers big tunes and colorful instrumentation.
But Brahms' first string sextet should appeal to anyone. Especially attractive is the heartfelt slow movement, variations on an intensely beautiful theme. This music has been incorporated into dramatic productions ranging from Louis Malle's early film, ``The Fire Within,'' to ``Star Trek: The Next Generation'' (where it was passed off as a Mozart quartet).
The most appealing Brahms chamber work of all may be his quintet for clarinet and strings. This and the two clarinet sonatas were Brahms' farewell to chamber music, and the quintet is wistful, intimate and touching.
Brahms listening suggestions
The various sonatas have been recorded well by many famous musicians; it's hard to find a loser. For the piano trios, the Beaux Arts Trio set on Philips heads the list. The clarinet and horn trios are available together on a London disc featuring pianist Andra:s Schiff and members of the New Vienna Octet.
The string quartets are available in a three-CD Deutsche Grammophon set by the Melos Quartet. Others have recorded these works with more passion and precision, but the box also contains good versions of the quartets of Brahms' mentor, Robert Schumann.
For the piano quartets, there's a fine version on the Arabesque label by the Cantilena Piano Quartet. And all the quintets and sextets have been conveniently assembled in a three-disc Deutsche Grammophon collection featuring the Amadeus Quartet and friends.