Farewell Chamber Music / Mark Alburger

An old musical programming technique is to save the biggest piece, in terms of numbers of musicians on stage, for last. But the San Francisco Symphony Chamber Music Concert on May 9 at Davies Hall took a Joseph Haydn "Farewell" approach: progressively fewer performers were left as the afternoon unfolded.

Beginning with less of a bang than may have been expected was Nathaniel Stookey's Junkestra, for a like-named ensemble of found instruments from the Norcal Recycling Center. This engagingly witty octet is in the tradition of Paul Dresher's sound sculptures, Harry Partch's microtonal instrumentarium, and the percussion-ensemble music of John Cage, Harry Partch, and Dmitri Shostakovich. While the program notes went on at length about the Gioachino Rossini William Tell Overture quote, the gallop rhythm (short-short long) seemingly could have been derived from any number of pieces, including many by Shostakovich. Certainly the ensemble was amusing to view, and amongst the more stimulating sounds were those from what seemed to be long pvc pipes -- deep and wonderful. The eight musicians, including one exclusively on musical saw, and the uncredited conductor were spot-on throughout, and the audience appreciative.

Also well-received was the Igor Stravinsky Octet (1923) for Flute, Clarinet, 2 Bassoons, 2 Trumpets, and 2 Trombones. This is composer towards the beginning of his neoclassic period, and the three movements have balance, energy, and precision in a way related to, yet far from, the Russian crowdpleasers of the previous decade or so (The Firebird, Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring). While it's not a fair fight, after all, to hold up a little chamber work to the massive aforementioned ballets, or even the later masterworks that he was yet to write, this piece is challenging and pleasant enough in its own way, beginning with a tune-up of trumpet, baroquish-classical fanefares of woodwinds and brass, burbling bassoons and so on. If the Tema con Variazioni second movement relies a little heavily on one particular recurring variation, so be it, perhaps as a kind of mailing-in of work that he was to do later on. The musicians carried on heroically throughout this uncompromisingly exposed and rather naked work.

Compatriot Sergei Prokofiev was next featured in his String Quartet No. 2 (1941), a music stemming from the composer's later Soviet years, of more accessible and less innovative writing. Is it a coincidence that his Violin Concerto No. 2 (1935), heard earlier this year in the same hall, bears similar imprints, and is simililarly uncharacteristically "unProkofievian"? Possibly. Violinists John Chisolm and Florin Parvulescu, violist Christina King, and cellist Barbara Andres gave it their best soloistic shots.

But far more on the mark was Maurice Ravel's great Piano Trio in A Minor, showing the composer in that war-torn year of 1914 at the height of his characteristic beauty and power, and violinist Dan Carlson, cellist Amos Yang, and pianist Solon Gordon totally up to the challenge. Here was a music of innovation and voice, wholly the composers own, in agreeable argument, poignant counterpoint, and lyrical grace. The way was clear throughout, and this smallest ensemble actually pulled off the biggest artistic bang of the proceedings.

Of course, the hopeless orchestral enthusiast in me wanted to hear all the players of the concert at once -- imagine an ensemble of flute, clarinet, 2 bassoons, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, piano, 8 found percussionsts, 3 violins, viola, and 2 celli for a resounding "Farewell!", indeed. Hmm, perhaps a local Composers Orchestra could pick up on that one...

Waltzing to Oblivion / Mark Alburger

It was festive. It was dark. It was the 2009 Opening Night Gala of the San Francisco Symphony, and Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas -- rarely one to provide simply an easy music- appreciation course for the the well-dressed but perhaps rarely-attending-otherwise crowd -- was up to a few old tricks.

Of course, it was all about sex, or at least sensuality, so that helped. Dance music in general, and waltzes in the case of the trio of works heard before intermisson, spring from courtship and display -- concepts that definitely had aural and visual realizations through the course of the evening.

The program? Yes, the program on September 9 at Davies Hall: Franz Lizst's Mephisto Waltz No. 1, Maurice Ravel's La Valse, and Richard Rodgers's Carousel Waltz, followed by a spectacular reading of the Sergei Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3 from Lang Lang.

The Lizst, the oldest man of the program, feels nevertheless contemporary in its dangerous, showboating unpredictability. Surely Thomas connects with this dashing 19th-century, intellectual-yet-sensual entertainer/virtuouso/composer, and the reading felt Faustianly fecund, at the edge of the improvisatory.

Ravel's Valse has always been a symbol of decadence and destruction, and was so here. At the same time, it's the product of a composer who never left a note out of place and always maintains his sophisticated craftiness -- even when the wine glasses are over-full. In this context, the Rodgers Carousel felt totally appropriate: this is not music simply for a pops concert, this is concert music among the best.

If the repertory survivors of 20th-century music come from unlikely sources, this is underscored by Prokofiev outrageous circumstances of time and place. The third piano concerto found the composer on the coast of Brittany producing at once one of his most traditional yet innovative works. The piece dances and flies along, particularly under the flamboyant fingers of the likes of Lang, and the musical argument is crystal clear: beautiful, sardonic, surprising. Not a piece for white-people-who-pretend-to-like-classical-music (a concept put forth in an SF tabloid) to sleep to -- indeed, cumulative attention seemed fixed and rapt. The strange anticlimax of a solo Chopin encore did nothing to tamp down the accumulated energy. Imagine how stunning the night would have additionally been with a 21st-century composition, in addition to great 19th- and 20th-century music, in the mix!

Bernstein Bounce / Mark Alburger

The Democratic and Republican National Conventions both provided "bounce" for their respective nominees Barack Obama and John McCain. Similarly, the opening gala of the 2008-2009 season, on September 3 at Davies Hall, proved likewise for candidates Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, in a bouncy program that featured music by Leonard Bernstein, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Leo Delibes.

The compositional front runner was unquestionably Bernstein's popular Symphonic Dances from "West Side Story", a perennial favorite that reminds us of just how important this composer and this work are and were to the American scene. Even a quick google can make a telling comparison, in terms of number of internet citations as of today (September 9):

Leonard Bernstein 2,870,000
Aaron Copland 1,110,000

West Side Story 5,130,000
Appalachian Spring 209,000

Certainly Bernstein's West Side Story would trounce Copland's Appalachian Spring (possibly the most-referenced American work in criticism, programming, and textbooks) in any musical Electoral College. And what Thomas and the Symphony reminded us was that WSS is appropriate not only for gala and pops concerts, but for any place and time, as a composition of beauty, depth, and energy. If the composer received assistance in its orchestration (by top orchestrators Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal), surely this points simply to Broadway deadlines, as, ironically, the work sounds as quintessentially Bernsteinian as anything Lenny ever wrote.

Styled as a series of nine attacca numbers, the Symphonic Dances feature much, yet not all, of the most arresting sections of the musical, as the entire evening's entertainment clearly has engaging music to burn (such memorable pieces as America, Maria, and Officer Krupke never make it out of the caucuses, for instance). What survives -- Prologue, Somewhere, Scherzo, Mambo, Cha-Cha, Meeting Scene, Cool Fugue, Rumble, and Finale -- makes for festive suite that proved the high point of the proceedings.

Also a contender was the Piano Concerto No. 3 of Rachmaninoff, with Yefim Bronfman on the docket. While not as immediately engaging as this fine conservative composer's second essay in the genre, the work certainly has its advocates, such as both the conductor and the soloist, who both blazed their way through blizzards of notes on this balmy night. If the work meanders a bit, there is much pleasure in the wanderings, and the finale evokes a romp along with the best of them.

The opener opened with Delibes's Cortege de Bacchus from Sylvia, featuring heroic brass fanfares and resonant string passage work.

Unlike the political rallies, however, the opener failed to provide us with any contemporary notions of diversity beyond the expected male European-American dominance. And, while the performers were certainly lively, the composers were, as is so often the case, all dead -- casting programming Music Director Thomas in an aesthetic position way to the right of a musical Sarah Palin.

The Birth of the Modern / Mark Alburger

San Francisco Symphony, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. January 25, Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, CA.

Will we ever know what really happened in those crucial years before World War I? In 1905, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov musically enriched a nice Russian revolutionary tune in a charmingly totally non-revolutionary way. In 1911, Igor Stravinsky exploded musical consciousness by writing a ballet about a forelorn Pinocchoesque puppet come to life. In six years, Russian musical aesthetics were turned on end, and the musical world has never been the same.

Such thoughts came to mind when hearing these two pieces, along with Peter Tchaikovsky's grand Symphony No. 4, at Davies Hall with the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas on January 25.

While Dubinuska is a serviceable little work in a textbook vibrant orchestration, Rimsky's pupil Stravinsky outdoes his master in virtually all regards in Petrushka. Where does this music come from, as a bolt out of the blue?

Well, some evidentally came from other sources, including five Russian folk songsm two waltz's by Joseph Lanner (a friend of Johan Strauss, Jr.), and one by Emile Spencer, "Elle avait un jame en bois," that turned out to be still in copyright (Spencer received royalties for years after). But, as is said in certain circles, it's not what you've got but how you use it., and Stravinsky's usages are totally original. Harsh bitonality, crazy scales and arpeggios, sparkling orchestration and animated rhythms at every turn -- this is a music that takes nothing for granted, and the San Francisco Symphony made the most of every moment.

If the Tchaikovsky symphony seemed tame by comparison, it was, although, in its day, the use of a recurring motive and various orchestrational nuances would have seemed fresh enough. Certainly the soloists in the Straivnsky and Tchaikovsky made every measure count, and a characteristic Russian wit and extravagance -- inherent in both scores -- was nicely brought out.

Particular commendations go out to pianist Robert Sutherland in the Stravinsky, and the string, woodwind, and brass sections in the third movement of the Tchaikovsky for crisp and intelligent musicality. On either side of a great stylistic divide there was musical excellence.

Comment

By the Numbers

Average pay for Boston Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic members

$121,000


Average pay for New York Philharmonic members

$118,000


Average pay for San Francisco Symphony members

$112,320

SFS Opening Rehearsal / Mark Alburger

For the first time in my 14-odd years of reviewing the San Francisco Symphony, I was unable to cover the opening night gala, due to my own obligation to rehearse the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra Gala (which occurs Friday, September 16, incidentally, at Old First Church on Van Ness Avenue, and features my outrageous setting of the Book of Ecclesiastes -- how's that for a shameless self-promotional plug?...). So the next best thing (and it was a poor second, let me tell you , devoid of champagne and fancy dresses, with not even a cup of coffee and cookie in sight) was to attend the SFS gala dress rehearsal on the morning of September 9. But we go to the symphony for the music, right?

Of course, right.

Gone are the years of Michael Tilson Thomas premiering a new work -- local or otherwise -- as a curtain raiser, but not my kvetching about the lack thereof. Instead, we had a glittering rendition of Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol on this all-Russian program.
The main bill of fare was Dmitri Shostakovich's sardonic Cello Concerto No. 1, with the not-so-sardonic Yo-Yo Ma. Talk about playing against type. But Ma's consummate professionalism brings his ever-present musicality and energy to this terse work in such a way that one can really experience the Soviet angst. Not exactly your typical opening night bon-bon, but this work is a crowd-pleaser nonetheless, allowing woodwinds, horns, timpani, and strings to shine along with the soloist.

Throughout the rehearsal one was struck by the business-like atmosphere. While there were a few stops for attention to nuances (indeed Ma returned after the break just to perfect a few snippets), much of the time was given to partial or complete run-throughs, in music that has undoubtedly been performed by most of the individuals on many occasions. Hardly sleepwalking or autopilot, but again the focus was on the musics, not the theatrics, with Thomas rarely rising from the comfort of his rehearsal chair.

There was some new old music, however (that is, a bit of repertory never before played by this ensemble), that being Peter Tchaikovsky's own string orchestra setting of music from his String Quartet No. 1, here retitled Andante Cantabile in B Major for Cello and Orchestra. This lovely, languorous composition seemed to capture the heart and soul of Ma and the strings, and was a delight to experience.

Also a delight was Thomas's stern and fiery reading of the same composer's March Slav, which features a grim modal-gypsy melody worthy of Mussorgsky, Mahler, or Shostakovich; Tchaikovsky's old-standby usage of a Russian national anthem; and general fireworks aplenty. A couple of late additions from his Swan Lake rounded out the program, and found Ma and concertmaster Alexander Barantschik in sonorous interplay.

This was a stimulating rehearsal that almost made up for missing the opening Gala that evening. And almost made up for the parking ticket I received for not remembering that there's nothing like the magic of the night, whether it be due to the chic party atmosphere or the fact that the police have more difficulty noticing that your automobiles wheels are turned the wrong way....

Pieces of Perturbation / Elizabeth Agnew

Sometimes the music is so good, you feel like you are right "in the action," and that was the case when Peter Oundjian took the stage to conduct the San Francisco Symphony in Maurice Ravel's Alborada del Gracioso on October 19 at Davies Hall. The visceral excitement made one want to change careers and become a orchestra member for life.

Then again, maybe it was just the good seats -- five rows back, mid-center -- but it seemed more than this, a feeling confirmed by the powerful performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams's wartime Symphony No. 6 (1947) that concluded. Oundjian made an excellent case from the podium that, despite the composer's thou-doth-protest-too-much, the work was indeed born out of world conflict (from a 75-year-old composer whose work, like certain individuals, became "crankier" with age). To make his point, the conductor prefaced the performance with the earlier Vaughan Williams setting of Greensleeves, before launching into the symphony's first movement, which shatters all bourgeois pretence. Wow! Angry chromatic lines and rushing scales set the mood for an exercise which, while not as complex as the corresponding music in the fourth symphony, is every bit as animated, with just enough thematic development and repetition to, as the composer put it, "show that this is a Symphony, not a symphonic poem."

But it is a kind of poem -- a sonic Howl (Allen Ginsberg's work was nine years later, in related yet decidedly different socio-political circumstances) -- and the second movement rachets down and up in ominous triplet figures. The bombs drop in the scherzo, but unlike the nukes across the street at War [!] Memorial with John Adams's Dr. Atomic, these were "conventional" weaponsofmassdestruction delivered during the firestorm of London. There is even an homage to a jazz saxophonist killed in a collapsed nightclub, in the animated trio section, survived by the woodwinds at large.

The conclusion, right down to the eerie alternations of Eb major and E minor chords (they share a G, so some players hold that note, while others queasily meander back and forth between the above half-steps -- we don't know whether to be hopeful or devastated -- and devastated pretty much wins), came off as well related in Vaughan Williams's comments recorded on an old Adrian Boult album where "indeed, in some places your playing was so clear that all of my faults came to the surface -- I hope a few virtues as well. ... [It was a] wonderful performance of the Finale Epilogue . . . . It was a wonderful feat of endurance to play an absolute pianissimo . . . on end. And mind you, it was not of merely not playing loud. It was a positive, sensitive pianissimo, full of meaning and tension."

Some things endure.

"And when I say 'gentlemen,' I include the lady harpist."

And some things, mercifully, change.

Endurance and change came to mind in the interior action-packed George Gershwin Piano Concerto in F that was energetically performed by the animated Jean-Yves Thibaudet, who stomped his way through in fully memorized form. It was a testament to the high quality of this concert that this music somehow became the "slow movement," bookended by the equally demonstrative readings of Ravel and Vaughan Williams. The action simply never stopped.

Selling Out by Selling Out / Mark Alburger

Sergei Prokofiev did it. Aaron Copland did it. Kurt Weill did it. Dmitri Shostakovich did it. Roger Waters and Pink Floyd did it. Philip Glass did it.

Selling out -- or so they were accused.

But simplifying or making more accessible one's style -- for whatever reason -- can not only lead to greater box office success. Sometimes it can lead to, heretically enough, creativity as good as or even better than that which proceeded.

Selling out by selling out.

That was the case again with the ever-controversial and popular Carmina Burana (Songs of Bueren -- original settings of sweets-of-sin texts by Medieval monks) given a blazingly inspiring reading by the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus, conducted by the energetic David Robertson, on November 9 at Davies. Carl Orff's Nazi-era masterwork was an immediate hit at its premiere and continues to be so, whether featured in television and movie spots, parsed in music literature classes, or performed with such enthusiasm and verve by present forces including the San Francisco Girls Chorus and Pacific Boychoir.

From the thunderous downbeat of the opening "O Fortuna" ("O Fortune") this was a performance that touched on old traditions and added new surprises. Baritone Christopher Maltman found the poignancy as well as the passion in his many solo turns, while tenor Richard Troxell made the most of his moment in "Olim lacus coleram" ("The Song of the Roasted Swan") complete with a flapping of wings and a turning on the spit. The lovely soprano Patricia Petibon negotiated her high notes with delicacy and found the right balance of sacred and profane. Indeed the assembled forces caught that holy eroticism that seems to pulsate through the work.

Yeah, yeah. No counterpoint and lots of percussion. But for those of us who like both Gregorian chant and rock 'n' roll -- what's not to like here, in what is arguably the most famous oratorio of the 20th-century? The San Francisco Symphony and Robertson made the most of every beautiful, colorful, and rhythmically urgent moment.

And what's not to like as well in Silvestre Revueltas's La Noche de los Mayas (The Night of the Mayas), a visceral film score arranged by Jose Ives Limantour (should he get a program credit along the lines of Maurice Ravel in the Modest Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition?)? This is a work that can stand up to the winds of Carmina with its one-two punch of sonorous strings and indigenous percussion. There are times at concerts when one wonders about certain programming choices -- but not here. This was a perfect companion to Orff, through Mexican-inspired motifs, capped by a wild theme-and-variations that was a dance at the jungle gym -- a fever that somehow reflected Revueltas's own short life bedeviled by alcoholism, absent at 40.

Movie music sell-out? Hardly. Yet sure, why not? Being true to both oneself and the larger world can mean that the art reaches its true potential and public, even if you're a suspected Nazi or drunk.