SFS Serves Up a Forrest Gump Chocolate

Conductor Ryan Bancroft (photograph by Benjamin Ealovega, courtesy of San Francisco Symphony)

This afternoon Davies Symphony Hall saw the first of the three subscription concerts for this week performed by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). Ryan Bancroft made his debut on the podium with support from the Shenson Young Artist Debut Fund. The soloist was the more seasoned violinist Joshua Bell,  but his second selection was being performed for the first time by SFS.

The above title invokes Forrest Gump because, in many ways, one of the chocolates in his box (where you do not know what you will be getting) could be taken as a metaphor for the entire program. That involved a generously robust shell of a rich dark chocolate, which accounted for the “outer extremes” of the program, Unsuk Chin’s “Alaraph ‘Ritus des Herzschlags’” at the beginning and Claude Debussy’s “La Mer” at the conclusion. The “filling” was then provided by the two selections that featured Bell on solo violin.

The title of Chin’s composition translates into “Alaraph: Rite of the Heartbeat.” The first word of the title is the name of a pulsating variable binary star. Chin’s program note explains that the varying brightness of this astronomical phenomenon tends to follow the same variation one observes in the trace of an echocardiogram, hence the relationship between the pulsating star and heartbeat.

Chin deployed a very large percussion section to realize this relationship in her score. She observed that she dispensed entirely with any of the pitched percussion instruments, devoting all of her focus on the interplay of polyrhythms. Those rhythms are then reinforced and developed through the other instruments in the ensemble, including a richly diverse array of winds and brass, as well as an accordion. A cynic might carp that this was music for “everything but the kitchen sink;” but Chin could not have done a better job in managing the full scope of her resources.

Because one good turn deserves another, Bancroft brought a thoroughly focused effort to his work on the podium. His attentiveness was enough to convince the listener that he had made it a point to attend to every note that made its mark on a score page. Thus, as the performance progressed, the attentive listener would gradually come to appreciate the role played by that synthesized relationship between pulsating star and heartbeat. As the score developed its coda, the listener could recognize the approach to the end of the journey; and this particular listener could relish that experience as if it were an encounter with that rich dark chocolate shell.

At the other end, the program concluded with “La Mer.” This takes us from astronomical phenomena to the ever-changing dispositions of the sea, beginning with the quietude of dawn and culminating with the massive waves that emerge through a “dialogue” between wind and water. It would not be out of the question to assume that Chin had applied meticulous study to Debussy’s score to develop her own mindset for dealing with both denotations and connotations of physical phenomena. Mind you, while Debussy’s approach to tonality is often fluid, Chin takes far more liberties with even the most basic concepts of a tonal center. What matters most, however, is familiarity; and far more listeners have contended with Debussy’s representative titles (“From Dawn Till Noon on the Sea,” “Play of the Waves,” “Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea”) than have tried to associate Chin’s sonorities with astronomical phenomena. Nevertheless, under Bancroft’s baton, these two compositions emerged as a “matched set” of music associated with a shell of rich dark chocolate.

What was encountered within that shell, however, was another matter. Bell ruled over this domain, which began with Henri Vieuxtemps’ Opus 37, his fifth violin concerto composed in the key of A minor. This was then reflected across the intermission into Bell presenting the first SFS performance of “Earth,” composed by Kevin Puts in 2023. While these two compositions were more than a century and a half apart, they shared what can best be called a “mushy” quality that contrasted sharply with the metaphor of a shell. To be more specific, one came away from both of these selections feeling as if the composer had ambled his way from beginning to end with few attentions to any significant way-stations. Furthermore, from a purely personal point of view, neither of these pieces established an initial grip on my attention, let alone maintain it.

To go back to the Gump metaphor, the shell of the candy could not have been more inviting; but, when one broke through that shell, the filling was far too bitter to please the sensitive tongue!

SFS Subscription Season: The Final Three Weeks

Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting (photograph by Minna Hatinen, courtesy of SFS)

Following the staged ballet-opera program that will begin next month, which was described yesterday, there will be three more weeks of subscription programs presented by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). All of the performances will be led by Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, and each will involve a distinguished visiting artist. Specifics are as follows:

June 13–15: Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason will return to Davies Symphony Hall. He made his debut there in October of 2022, when he played Edward Elgar’s cello concerto with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, led by conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. For his debut in the Orchestral Series, he will play Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 107, the first of his two cello concertos composed in the key of E-flat major. The remainder of the program will be devoted to tone poems. The first of these will be the SFS premiere of “Fairytale Poem” by Sofia Gubaidulina. The program will then conclude with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Francesca da Rimini.”

June 21–23: Pianist Yefim Bronfman will return to Davies, this time as soloist in a performance of Robert Schumann’s piano concerto. The rest of the program will be devoted entirely to Anton Bruckner’s WAB 104, his fourth symphony in E-flat major. Bruckner himself gave this symphony the subtitle “Romantic.”

June 28–30: The final program of the season will consist only of Gustav Mahler’s third symphony. This is a full-evening composition with extended resources. Those resources will include visiting mezzo Kelley O’Connor, as well as the joined choral forces of the SFS Chorus (Jenny Wong, Director) and the Pacific Boychoir Academy (Andrew Brown, Director).

Each of the above dates is hyperlinked to an SFS Web page through which readers can be informed about ticket prices and availability, as well as support for online purchases. In addition, there will be an Open Rehearsal on Thursday, June 13, for the program with Kanneh-Mason. This special behind-the-scenes experience begins at 8:30 a.m. with coffee and complimentary doughnuts, followed by a half-hour introductory talk at 9 a.m. The rehearsal itself begins at 10 a.m.; and, of course, the pieces rehearsed are at the conductor’s discretion. Admission will be free for those holding tickets for one of the three concert performances. For others general admission is $35 with $45 for reserved seats in the Premiere Orchestra section, as well as all Boxes and the Loge. Tickets may be purchased online through a separate event page. All tickets may also be purchased at the Davies Symphony Hall Box Office. The entrance is on the south side of MTT Way (formerly Grove Street), located between Franklin Street and Van Ness Avenue.

Yuja Wang Disappoints on Latest Visit

Pianist Yuja Wang (photograph by Kirk Edwards, San Francisco Symphony)

Last night pianist Yuja Wang returned to Davies Symphony Hall for her latest Great Performers Series recital. She made her last Great Performers appearance about two months more than a year earlier when she was joined by the entire San Francisco Symphony conducted by Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen for a performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Opus 30 (third) piano concerto in D minor. She took only two encores: Franz Liszt’s adaptation of Franz Schubert’s D. 118 “Gretchen am Spinnrade” song with text taken from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust and Giovanni Sgambati’s “Melody from ‘Orfeo ed Euridice’,” his transcription of the “Dance of the Blessed Spirits” from the opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck.

Last night it seemed as if she was more interested in the encores that on the works included in the program she had prepared. By my count there were seven of them, played out one-by-one with no hint of any verbal introduction. I must confess that the first four were entirely unknown to me, although it was not difficult to recognize that the third was a tango. She then moved onto the turf of three identifiable transcriptions.

The first of these was the second (Allegro molto) movement from Dmitri Shostakovich’s eighth (Opus 110) string quartet in C minor, offering some of the composer’s fieriest rhetoric. This was followed by a “return visit” to the Schubert-Liszt “Gretchen.” The encores concluded with the Allegro molto vivace march in the third movement of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 74 (sixth) symphony, best known as the “Pathétique.”

If I have chosen to begin with these three encores, it is because they were the most engaging portion of the evening. The least engaging was the second half of the program itself, covering all four of Frédéric Chopin’s “Ballade” compositions: Opus 23 in G minor, Opus 38 in F major, Opus 47 in A-flat major, and Opus 52 in F minor. This was probably my first encounter with Wang playing Chopin (and, for all I know, it was hers as well). She was clearly not in her comfort zone; and, if she managed to make sure that all the notes were in the right place, there was little sense that any of those notes had any rhetorical significance.

The first half of the program was an odd “reverse chronology” of three twentieth-century selections. The earliest of these was Claude Debussy’s “L’isle joyeuse,” delivered with all of its rapid-fire finger-busting accuracy and none of its erotic rhetoric. This was preceded by Alexander Scriabin’s Opus 66 (eighth) piano sonata. This was the third of the six last sonatas composed without key signatures; and, by this time (1912) Scriabin had clearly found his own “atonal voice.” Wang’s delivery was as true to the marks on paper as one could expect, making this the most satisfying account of the evening.

Less satisfying was her opening gambit, extracting two of the movements from Olivier Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus (twenty contemplations on the Infant Jesus). I have taken great pleasure in this cycle for quite some time and was fortunate enough to hear a full matinee performance, which began on a sunny afternoon and concluded with the sun setting through the large glass window behind the audience area. I happen to believe that this composition works only as a cycle. Extracting a movement tears it away from the overall context. Wang selected the fifteenth and the tenth movement, playing them in that reverse order.

I have two hypotheses as to why she was doing what she did. The more positive is that she is preparing herself to take on the full cycle. Her strategy may have been to deal with some of the most challenging movements first before allowing them to take their places in the overall flow of the cycle. The more negative is that she just wanted to play the movements with the heaviest flows of notes! In either case, I feel that last night’s approach did not situate Messiaen in a particularly good light; but, since this music is performed so seldom, I doubt that many in her audience were aware of just what that light was.

To be fair, I feel that Wang deserves credit for rising to imposing challenges; but, taken as a whole, last night’s performance lacked the spirit that I had come to know so well from my previous encounters with her recitals.

Choices for June 7–9, 2024

The next “busy weekend” will be the first full weekend in next month. As usual, there will be the usual breadth of diversity; and, in at least one case, that will involve a single event. As in the past, specifics will be ordered according to when the respective events begin as follows:

Friday and Saturday, June 7-8, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, June 9, 2 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall: Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen will return to the podium of the San Francisco Symphony. Each half of the program will consist of a single selection, a ballet and an opera. The program will begin with “Ma mère l’Oye” (Mother Goose), a one-act ballet set to music by Maurice Ravel. That score was an extended version of a suite of five pieces for four hands on one keyboard, composed as music to be performed by children. As might be expected, the ballet version has far richer sonorities; but the music is still structured around a sequence of fairy tales. Choreography will be provided by Alonzo King and performed by his Alonzo King LINES Ballet. The second half of the program will be Arnold Schoenberg’s one-act opera, his Opus 17 “Erwartung,” consisting of four scenes and a single soprano vocalist. This involves a very dark narrative, which will be staged by Peter Sellars. The soprano will be Mary Elizabeth Williams, making her Orchestral Series debut.

As most readers probably know by now, Davies is located at 201 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of Grove Street. (The entrance to both the Box Office and the hall itself is on the south side of Grove.) Tickets are available online through a Web page. Ticket prices range from $39 to $169. Note that, because of the staged performances, seating will not be available in the Terraces.

Friday and Saturday, June 7–8, 7:30 p.m., War Memorial Opera House: Each of these dates will present a different opera in the current San Francisco Opera repertoire; details about the operas (including venue specifics and prices) may be found on the Web pages for Innocence (on Friday) and The Magic Flute (on Saturday).

Friday, June 7, 8 p.m., The Lab: As is often the case at this venue, the program will be a two-set performance. Composer Stefan Maier is based in Vancouver. His compositions (as well as installations and performances) examine emergent and historical sound technologies as tools for speculation. HIs inspirations are the unceded, traditional territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. The second set will be taken by Michael Masaru Flora, whose works tend to be multidisciplinary in the form of large scale installation and performance.

Admission will be $17 for tickets purchased in advance through the event page. Entry at the door will be $15. As usual, members are entitled to free or discounted admission. The Lab is located in the Mission at 2948 16th Street, a short walk east from the intersection with Mission Street, which serves BART and both north-south and east-west Muni buses.

Saturday, June 8, 7:30 p.m., Heron Arts: One Found Sound will wrap of its season by throwing a party. This year they have given this event a self-referential title NOW! That’s What I Call A GALA! Their usual classical bill of fare will take a back seat with a program organized primarily around the greatest hits from the late nineties and the first decades of this new century. General admission will be $45 with $125 for VIP admission. The VIP perquisites include light bites and appetizers and opportunities to meet and greet members of the orchestra. A Web page has been created to serve as the shopping cart for tickets. There is also a Web page that serves as the entry point for the entire gala. Heron Arts is located in SOMA at 7 Heron Street, which is on the northeast side of 8th Street between Folsom Street and Harrison Street.

Sunday, June 9, 4 p.m., Ruth Williams Opera House: The Left Coast Chamber Ensemble (LCCE) will conclude their season a program entitled Pathways: Florence Price Piano Quintet. As might be guessed, the program will begin with the Price quintet in A minor. This will be followed by “Klatka Still” by David Sanford. The program will then conclude with the world premiere performance of “New Miniature,” a duo for double bass and bass clarinet composed by Chris Castro, currently the Pathways Mentor for LCCE. The Ruth Williams Opera House is located at 4705 3rd Street and is easily accessible by the Third Street trolley. Unfortunately, as of this writing, the Web site for purchasing tickets is defective. Those interested in attending this performance will probably benefit from calling 415-617-5223.

Sunday, June 9, 4 p.m., Star of the Sea Church: This will be the latest performance by Slavyanka, a chorus based in San Francisco, which takes the old Russian name of what we now call the Russian River. Program details have not yet been announced. However, the composers contributing to the program will be Irina Denisova, Dragana Velickovic, Iryna Alexsiychuk, Dobrinka Tabakova, and Ljubica Marić. The venue is located in the Sunset at 4420 Geary Boulevard. General admission will be $25, and those age eighteen and younger will be admitted for free. Tickets (including the free ones) may be acquired through the Web page for this event.

Sunday, June 9, 4 p.m., St. Mark’s Lutheran Church: San Francisco Choral Artists will conclude its season with a program entitled Birds & Bees & Dirty Knees: A Garden Tribute. The program will include world premiere performances by Eric Tuan and Balázs Kecskés D., along with the winning candidate in the New Voices Project. Many other composers will be represented on this program, the most familiar of them being Johannes Brahms. A Web page has been created for online ticket purchase, which may be chosen by the purchaser. Tickets at the door will be $15 for those under the age of 30, $30 for seniors, and $35 for all others. As most readers probably know by now, the church is located at 1111 O’Farrell Street, just west of the corner of Franklin Street.

Singing About Meteorology

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

When, during my undergraduate years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I first began seriously to hone my craft at writing reviews of concert and dance performances, I frequently encountered the adage that writing about music was like dancing about architecture (whose origins have never been verified but seem to date back over a hundred years ago). I was reminded of that experience this morning while listening to Beaufort Scales, a cantata by Christopher Cerrone, on a new Cold Blue Music album. The album will be released this coming Friday; and, as is so often the case, Amazon.com has already created a Web page for taking pre-orders.

The Wikipedia page for the Beaufort scale describes it as “an empirical measure that relates wind speed to observed conditions at sea or on land.” I probably was first aware of it in weather forecasts involving the strength of a hurricane with a number between zero and twelve. The National Weather Service has created a Web page giving the descriptions for each of those steps, and they provide the texts for the “Prelude” and twelve “Step” movements of Beaufort Scales. Interleaved among those thirteen movements are four narrated “interludes.” Two of those interludes (the second and fourth) draw upon Herman Melville. The other sources come from F. Scott Fitzgerald (the first interlude) and Anne Carson (the third), as well as a single verse (about fair weather) from the Book of Matthew, which serves as the “Postlude.”

The texts are sung by the Lorelei Ensemble, which consists of a “double quartet” of four sopranos, two mezzos, and two altos, led by Artistic Director Beth Willer. Any “accompaniment” is provided by electronics conceived by Cerrone and realized with the assistance of Dave Sanchez, Olivier Pasquet, Nate Thatcher. This was clearly an ambitious undertaking.

My past experiences with Cerrone’s music have been sporadic (to say the least). According to my records, the most recent one took place in November of 2021, when he was one of nine composers featured in a recital by pianist Ting Luo presented by Old First Concerts. Going back even earlier, percussionist Andy Meyerson performed his “A Natural History of Vacant Lots” at Z Below in September of 2019; and that performance was subsequently released as a YouTube video. In those contexts I have found Cerrone’s music engaging; but I have to confess that, after listening to Beaufort Scales several times, I have come away feeling that I have been overwhelmed by too many ideas and not enough music.

I see from Cerrone’s Wikipedia page that much of his effort has gone into working with vocal resources; but I fear that, if Beaufort Scales is representative, I would much prefer the instrumental encounters.

Outsound Presents: June, 2024

Next month Outsound Presents will return to its usual plan of three performances. Two of them will be LSG (Luggage Store Gallery) New Music Series events; and between them will be the monthly SIMM (Static Illusion Methodical Madness) Series program on a Sunday evening. As regular readers probably know by now, LSG is located at 1007 Market Street, just off the corner of Sixth Street and across from the corner of Golden Gate Avenue and Taylor Street. Admission is on a sliding scale between $10 and $20. The SIMM Series concerts take place at the Musicians Union, located in SoMa at 116 9th Street. Admission is again on a sliding scale, this time between $10 and $25. Program specifics are as follows:

Wednesday, June 5, 8 p.m.: The first LSG concert will be a two-set evening; but, as of this writing, the second set has not yet been finalized. The first set will be taken by greying, a one-person (female) band, performing on piano with input from eight-track tape cassettes. The band (such as it is) describes its repertoire as post-rock-folk.

Sunday, June 9, 7:30 p.m.: The SIMM Series program will also have two sets. The first of these will be the Moxie trio, consisting of members of Noertker’s Moxie. The leader is bassist Bill Noertker. He will be joined by wind player Annelise Zamula and drummer Eli Knowles. The title of the second set is “Weird Excursions,” which will be performed by the Tri-Cornered Tent Show.

Wednesday, June 19, 8 p.m.: The second LSG event will also be a two-set evening. The first set will be taken by Skullkrusher, which is the performing name that Philip Everett takes when working with his electronic gear. He will be joined by Toni Pope, who was trained as an opera singer here in San Francisco. The second set will be taken by guitarist Michael Mersereau, an alumnus of both the California College of the Arts and Mills College, who specializes in electroacoustic music.

John Luther Adams: More Quartet Music

Those who have followed this site for some time are probably aware of the close relationship that composer John Luther Adams has with the JACK Quartet, whose members are violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, violist John Richards, and Jay Campbell on cello. Indeed, the ensemble performed in Herbst Theatre this past October, presenting a program consisting entirely of Adams’ music. Those that enjoyed that encounter will be happy to know that, this coming Friday, Cold Blue Music will release a new CD of the ensemble playing Adams’ recent efforts.

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

The title of the album is Waves and Particles, and Adams conceived it as a suite of six movements. He describes the composition as “inspired by quantum physics, fractal geometry, and noise—which function as elemental metaphors in my music.” He further observes that each of the six movements is structured by a “simple fractal form.” In some respects this calls to my own mind the recollection of John Cage’s goal of “making more and more with less and less.” It would be fair to say that fractal geometry is representative of complexity emerging from simplicity.

Given my own credentials in mathematics and applied mathematics, one might expect that I would be happy as a pig in you-know-what with this new release. On the positive side I am still taken in with Adams’ capacity to evoke imaginative sonorities, delivered with compelling clarity by the JACK players. However, I must confess that there were times over the course of the listening experiences that left me wondering if “more and more” had gone over the brink into “too much.”

To some extent I am reminded of “Take a Pew,” Alan Bennett’s solo routine for Beyond the Fringe, which emerges as a hilarious parody of a sermon. Towards the conclusion, Bennett muses, “Life, you know, is rather like opening a tin of sardines. We are all of us looking for the key.” Fractal structures present complexity emerging from a simple key. However, once we have that key, there is little more that we can do other than eat those metaphorical sardines.

Perhaps my misgivings emerge from the fact that, while each of the suite’s six movements has its own “key,” after one or two of them have run their respective courses, I begin to think little more than “I get it.” Taken as a whole, the suite may be too much of a good thing. Thus, while I cannot fault the technique of the JACK Quartet in bringing the score to life, I suspect that, in the future, I shall be more interested in experiencing each of the movements individually.

Music with a Message?

Back in my student days, I encountered any number of creative artists who subscribed to the adage, “If I want to deliver a message, I’ll call Western Union!” These days I doubt if anyone knows about (let alone remembers) Western Union, thanks to the Internet. However, if messages are now “delivered” through electronic mail, the principle still remains that trying to “deliver a message” through artistic creativity turns out, more often than not, to be a fool’s errand.

Inna Faliks on the cover of her latest album (courtesy of Classical Music Communications)

That principle serves as context for my latest encounter with an album of Odessa-born pianist Inna Faliks. Some readers may recall my account of her Delos CD entitled Polonaise-fantaisie: The Story of a Pianist. That account made it clear that her talking rubbed me the wrong way; and, on her latest album, Manuscripts Don’t Burn, she is still at it. The good news is that this time she is delivering the words of others. Nevertheless, her deliveries tend to be vapid; and the very idea of alternating spoken text with short movements for solo piano has little impact other than cringe-inducing.

The good news is that there are a few tracks that  provide more justice to the music than to the pianist’s verbal ventures. There are three tracks of Franz Liszt solo piano arrangements of songs by Franz Schubert, which are given straightforward enough accounts to make for satisfying listening. Similarly, the album concludes with “Hero,” composed for solo piano by Clarice Assad in 2013 and appearing on a recording for the very first time. Unfortunately, this appears as a “postlude” to the far less impressive speaking-pianist venture Godai, the Five Elements, which Assad composed for Faliks.

On the whole this album is a self-preening undertaking, which talks too much and delivers too little.

The Bleeding Edge: 5/13/2024

This week involves a generous number of previously reported events. Indeed, even the number of venues is generous as follows:

• The Luggage Store Gallery will host the latest Outsound Presents installment in its Luggage Store Creative Music Series on Wednesday evening.
• Audium will present two more performances of The Depths on Friday and Saturday evenings.
• The Lab will host multi-set performances on Friday and Saturday evenings.
• The Center for New Music will present performances on Friday and Saturday evenings, followed by the monthly installment of G|O|D|W|A|F|F|L|E|N|O|I|S|E|P|A|N|C|A|K|E|S on Sunday at noon.
• Earplay will present its New Conversations program at Old First Presbyterian Church on Monday, one week from today.

The remaining three events are distributed across an “extended weekend” at four different venues as follows:

Friday, May 17, 7 p.m., Medicine for Nightmares: This week’s installment of Other Dimensions in Sound, curated by reed player David Boyce, will be devoted entirely to the Sink Head Trio, whose members are clarinetist Ben Goldberg, Ben Davis on cello, and drummer Jordan Glenn. As seems to have been overlooked over the last couple of week, this venue is located in the Mission at 3036 24th Street, between Treat Avenue and Harrison Street. As always, there is no charge for admission, presumably to encourage visitors to consider buying a book.

Saturday, May 18, 2 p.m., San Francisco Public Library, Golden Gate Valley Branch: The next concert to be presented by this library branch will be performed by two members of the Wooden Fish Ensemble, violinist Terrie Baune and Ellen Ruth Rose on viola. They will present to compositions by Hyo-shin Na, “The Sway of the Branch” and “Weaving Variations.” Na will introduce the performance with commentary on both of these work. The venue is located at 1801 Green Street; and, as usual, there will be no charge for admission.

Maria BC (from the event page for the performance of Forest Scenes)

Sunday, May 19, Gray Area Art And Technology: This will be a performance of Forest Scenes, a song cycle composed and performed by vocalists Maria BC, who will perform with cellist MIZU. All tickets are priced at $25. (The “Early Bird” rate has expired.) Gray Area has created a Web page for online purchase of tickets. For those unfamiliar with the venue, it is located at 2665 Mission Street, between 22nd Street and 23rd Street.

Violinist Mayuko Kamio’s Imaginative Program

Yesterday afternoon in Herbst Theatre, Chamber Music San Francisco presented the penultimate program in its 2024 season, a violin recital by Mayuko Kamio, accompanied at the piano by Noreen Cassidy-Polera. The first half of the program offered the sort of music one would expect from such a recital, coupling a sonata by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (K. 304 in E minor) with one by Johannes Brahms (Opus 100, the second, in A major). Kamio preceded these with a solo performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1006, the third partita, in the key of E major, in the collection of six sonata and partitas for solo violin.

All of these selections were given disciplined accounts of the music. Kamio even honored the “unwritten invitation” to provide her own embellishments to the movements of the Bach partita. She also knew how to establish the individual characteristic qualities of each of the partita’s dance movements. Where the sonatas were concerned, each composer had his own approach to expressiveness; and Kamio knew just how to honor both of them. Given that the piano was Brahms’ primary instrument, the interplay in his sonata was particularly evident and could not have been better reflected by the duo’s joint interpretation.

Those of my generation probably remember the British comedy duo of pianist (and composer) Donald Swann and singer (and lyricist) Michael Flanders. Flanders did most of the talking; and his most memorable line was, “We’re running a little late, so we are going to perform all our encores in a single burst!” Kamio did him one better: She devoted the entire second half of the program to nine short selections, all of which are usually performed as encores!

The “order of appearance” of these pieces was as follows:

1. César Franck, Salut d’Amour
2. Antonín Dvořák, Songs My Mother Taught Me
3. Manuel Ponce, Estrellita
4. Fritz Kreisler, Liebesfreud
5. Fritz Kreisler, Liebesleid
6. Sergei Rachmaninoff, Vocalise
7. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Waltz-Scherzo
8. Grigoraș Dinicu, Hora Staccato
9. Vittorio Monti, Csárdás

These were followed by the “real” encore for the program, Antonio Bazzini’s Opus 25, his “Scherzo fantastique,” better known by the title he attached: “The Dance of the Goblins.” While this approach to programming threatened to be “one damned thing after another,” the combination of diversity and expressive interpretation resulted in a thoroughly engaging overall journey.

2021 cropped photograph of violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter (provided by Quincena Musical, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, from Wikimedia Commons)

While I usually do not report on such matters, I feel it is worth reporting on Kamio’s taste in strapless gowns (one for each half of the program). My generation recalls Anne-Sophie Mutter (above), who had a similar wardrobe. She has been reported as saying that any fabric provided a surface that was too slippery. As I recall, the way she put it was that she wanted to feel her instrument on her own flesh. I have no idea whether Kamio was influenced by Mutter, but there was no questioning her sure command of every gesture with her instrument!

Bruno Monteiro’s Century of Diversity

Cover of the album being discussed (courtesy of violinists Bruno Monteiro)

Those that have followed this site for some time may know that I have been making it a point to follow the albums released by Portuguese violinist Bruno Monteiro, usually performing with pianist João Paulo Santos. The title of the most recent album to be released by this duo is 20th Century and Forward. As of this writing, the album has been available on an Amazon.com Web page since April 1; but it is only available for MP3 download. According to at least one site that I visited, the CD version should be available next month. (It is already available in Europe, but I suspect that most readers are not interested in overseas delivery.)

The chronology of this new release begins early in 2017, which is when Claude Debussy concluded his only sonata for violin and piano, composed in the key of G minor. This has been a personal favorite for almost as long as I have been focusing on writing about the making of music. In this particular case, the music is introduced in a less familiar context, since it is preceded by Edward Elgar’s Opus 82, a duo sonata in E minor. I must confess that, for this particular piece, Monteiro’s intonation did not sound as secure as it did on the rest of the album, leaving me to wonder how much (or little) Elgar knew about intonation issues where the violin was concerned. (He certainly did not have any trouble with the cello in his cello concerto!)

The two sonatas were followed by two single-movement compositions. The first of these was the “Romance” by José Luiz Barbosa, a leading Portuguese violinist during the first half of the twentieth century. Little seems to be known about his efforts as a composer; and, since “Romance” is only three and one-half minutes long, it is hard to assess the quality of those efforts. The second short piece is “Ascent,” composed for violin and piano by the British composer Ivan Moody, who died this past January after struggling with prolonged illness. The title was chosen to refer to the ascent into Heaven; and, on Monteiro’s album, the cobwebs of that dark rhetoric are blown away by his selecting Ravel’s “Tzigane” as the concluding track. This music is technically challenging; but, for the attentive listener, it serves up a wild ride well worth taking!

Overall, this new release is a satisfying offering. I am not sure if the idea of a violin sonata was in Elgar’s comfort zone. (He destroyed his first effort, but that was way back in 1884!) I would say that my own jury will stay out until I have an opportunity to listen to a violinist perform this music in a recital. Nevertheless, if another recording comes my way, I shall probably let my curiosity get the better of me.

SFJAZZ: June, 2024

This month’s offerings in the Joe Henderson Lab of the SFJAZZ Center were folded into a “busy weekend” article. The first half of next month, however, will be devoted to the 41st San Francisco Jazz Festival. All but two of the performances will take place at the Center, while Herbst Theatre and Davies Symphony Hall will each host one event. Those two “exceptions” to the rule will be cited at the end of this article. First, however, there will be an account of Henderson events. For those that do not already know, the Center is located at 201 Franklin Street, on the northwest corner of Fell Street, where the main entrance doors are located. Performance dates, times, and hyperlinks for purchasing tickets are as follows:

Wednesday, June 5, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: The title of the Opening Night program is Unity Through Sound. It will be a performance by the 24-member CO-LLAB Choir, led by keyboardist, vocalist, and arranger Cava Menzies, who is also the co-founder of the Oakland School for the Arts. This ensemble is dedicated to developing new works with a wide array of visionary composers, as well as co-arranging and co-composing music specifically by members of the group.

Thursday, June 6, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: The Lao Tizer Band will make its SFJAZZ debut. They will perform material from AMPLIFY, which will be released both as an album and as a video. Tizer leads from multiple keyboards (including the piano). He will lead a quartet whose other members are Gene Coyle on drums, vocalist Elliott Yamin, and Anthony Crawford on bass.

Friday, June 7, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: The Rodriguez brothers are trumpeter Mike (a member of the SFJAZZ Collective) and Robert on piano. They are the sons of drummer Roberto Rodriguez. In 2015 they released the album Impromptu, which received a GRAMMY nomination for Best Latin Jazz Album. Their repertoire mixes Afro-Cuban rhythms with modern jazz.

Saturday, June 8, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: Nikara Warren is a vibraphonist. Her compositions blend the genres of hip-hop, jazz, neo-soul, and rhythms of both Afro-Latino and Afro-Caribbean origins. As of this writing, it is uncertain whether she will play solo or with a backup group.

Sunday, June 9, 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.: Kalil Amar Wilson is an alumnus of the Oakland Youth Chorus. They now perform piano music as well as vocals. Their most recent album is Time Stops, sharing composition duties with pianist Dan Marschak. Most likely, this will be a solo performance.

Monday, June 10, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: Drummer and composer Sylvia Cuenca will make her SFJAZZ debut as a leader. Unfortunately, the other members of her combo have not yet been announced. However, since Nat Hentoff has christened her “the fiery incarnation of Art Blakey,” one should probably approach her combo work with high expectations!

Tuesday, June 11, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: This will be a duo performance by Spanish-born jazz pianist Chano Domínguez and Antonio Lizana, who is both a saxophonist and a flamenco singer. They will perform selections from Estándares, released by Altafonte in 2022. Those selections will reimagine standards from different eras, such as Jerome Kern’s “All the Things You Are,” Dave Brubeck’s “In Your Own Sweet Way,” and John Coltrane’s “Resolution” (the second movement of his extended suite A Love Supreme).

Wednesday, June 12, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: Bassist and composer Ben Wolfe will lead a quartet whose other members are Nicole Glover on saxophone, pianist Orrin Evans, and Aaron Kimmel on drums. The program will present selections from Wolfe’s Unjust album. He also plans to preview selections from his next release in 2025, which will consist of four extended compositions.

Thursday, June 13, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: Guitarist and composer Oscar Peñas made his SFJAZZ debut during the 2022–23 season. For this performance he will play electric guitar, leading a trio, whose other members will be Simón Wilson on upright bass, and Marc Ferber on drums. His original compositions weave together jazz, Spanish folk music, and the European classical tradition.

Friday, June 14, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: Cameroonian-American vocalist Ekep Nkwelle will make her San Francisco debut, having already been celebrated as a “rising star” on “the other coast.”

Saturday, June 15, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: Jumaane Smith is both a trumpeter and a vocalist. His debut album as a trumpeter was I Only Have Eyes for You, which was released in 2014. This a standards album with a plethora of “guest artists,” one of whom was the young opera vocalist Jackie Evancho. He continued to explore the Great American Songbook in 2020 with the release of When You’re Smiling, which evoked the timeless appeal of Louis Armstrong.

Sunday, June 16, 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.: The Festival will conclude with a festive Dance Floor Show (which means standing room only for general admission). Music will be provided by Sal’s Greenhouse, an Oakland-based soul and R&B group. They take their name from their leader, vocalist and baritone saxophonist Sally Green.

The two events that will not be taking place in the SFJAZZ Center are as follows:

Friday, June 7, 8 p.m., Herbst Theatre: The Big Phat Band is led by pianist, saxophonist, composer, and arranger Gordon Goodwin. This group was formed in 2000 and reflects an impressive diversity of Goodwin’s influences: Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Buddy Rich, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Tower of Power! For their return visit, the group will be joined by the eclectic Bay Area-based string group Quartet San Francisco.

Wednesday, June 12, 8 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall: This program was planned to celebrate the centennial of Canadian piano legend Oscar Peterson. As might be expected, the performances will focus on Peterson’s own compositions. This will include the United States premiere of his AFRICA suite, arranged by John Clayton, and a performance of Canadiana Suite, composed in 1964, in its entirety. The performers will be a quartet led by pianist Benny Green, who had been Peterson’s protégé. Rhythm will be provided by guitarist Russell Malone, Jeff Hamilton on drums, and bassist Clayton (who is also a composer). The program will also feature three other pianists: SFJAZZ Resident Artistic Director Kenny Barron, Gerald Clayton, and Tamir Hendelman. Finally, John Clayton and Hamilton will join forces to lead (what else?) the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra.

Bignamini and DSO Take On Mahler’s Ninth

Jader Bignamini conducting the final movement of Mahler’s ninth symphony (screen shot from the video being discussed)

Apparently, last week’s account of “the final live-stream of the season in the Live from Orchestra Hall series presented by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO)” was premature. Yesterday evening saw another concert in the series, this time devoted to a single composition. Music Director Jader Bignamini led a very full ensemble in a complete performance of Gustav Mahler’s ninth symphony. In his brief opening remarks Bignamini informed the audience that this was the composer’s last completed symphony. He died before it was first performed; and that first performance was led by his close colleague, Bruno Walter.

Walter would later move to the United States to escape the Nazis. He settled in Beverly Hills and became part of the “Weimar on the Pacific” crowd. His activities included making recordings for Columbia with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra (which probably included members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic performing anonymously). He recorded the Mahler ninth in January and February of 1961, and that album is probably one of the few that affords “close contact” with the composer.  Walter had been recording performances of Mahler’s music for Columbia since 1945, when an album was made of his leading the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York (as it was then known) in a performance of the fourth symphony with soprano Dési Halban singing in the fourth movement.

Mahler was very much a “devil with the details.” When he composed for a large ensemble, much of his writing would give attention to individual instruments. One key advantage of last night’s video was the wealth of opportunities to see instruments seldom encountered with extended solo passages. Given my own instrumental background, my favorite last night was the bass clarinet (Shannon Orme, who holds the Barbara Frankel and Ronald Michalak Chair). In a similar vein, Marcus Schoon received considerable camera attention for his work on contrabassoon. There were also several excellent shots of Dennis Nulty on tuba, as well as percussionists Joseph Becker, Andrés Pichardo-Rosenthal, Luciano Valdes, and James Ritchie, who also added an extra hand to Jeremy Epp’s timpani work. Taken as a whole, the camera work played a leading role in guiding the attentive listener through the vast complexes of Mahler’s polyphonic inventions.

I have lost count of the number of times I have listened to this particular Mahler symphony in Davies Symphony Hall, but the video director for last night’s performances drew my attention to any number of details that I had not previously encountered with ears as my primary resource!

Old First Concerts: June, 2024

This month’s events in the Old First Concerts (O1C) series were reported in conjunction with the first “busy weekend” of the month. As of this writing, three performances have been scheduled for next month. All of them will be “hybrid,” allowing both live streaming and seating in Old First Presbyterian Church at 1751 Sacramento Street on the southeast corner of Van Ness Avenue. Ticket prices are now adjusted according to seating areas. Hyperlinks to the event pages continue to be attached to the date and time of the performances, as above. Specifics are as follows:

Sunday, June 2, 4 p.m.: The piano music of Mark Winges, who is based here in San Francisco, will be performed by Blaise Bryski, who lives on the East Coast. Bryski will give a complete account of Winges’ Nocturnes collection, composed between 2001 and 2022. He will begin the program with “Red Sky Opening,” which was completed in 2009. The final selection will be the 2023 “More Hand Jive.”

Friday, June 14, 8 p.m.: Sitar player Arjun K. Verman, who, according to my records, last visited Old First on August 5, 2022, will return. This time he will be accompanied by tabla player Emam Hashimi. Once again, the repertoire will be influenced by the ancient and modern aspects of Indian classical music in the style of the legendary Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.

Pianist Lee Alan Nolan (from his O1C event page)

Sunday, June 30, 4 p.m.: Another returning artist will be pianist Lee Alan Nolan. Readers may recall that I described his last visit on July 22, 2022 as “Scriabin Rubs Shoulders with Joplin.” His own title of the program was From Rags to Mystics, and the title of this month’s program will be From Rags to Mystics 2. The ragtime composers will be Scott Joplin, May Aufderheide, and Irene Giblin. The “primary mystic” will be Olivier Messiaen with a performance of the three compositions in the first book of his Catalogues d’oiseaux. (The composer collected seven of these books, but five of them have only a single composition!) The program will also include another composition by Bruce Christian Bennett, “Small Art.”

Ferrández Debuts at SFS with Engaging Elgar

Cellist Pablo Ferrández (photograph by Kristian Schuller, courtesy of SFS)

Last night Davies Symphony Hall saw the debut of Spanish cellist Pablo Ferrández, currently on a tour of symphonic debut performances across both the United States and Europe. Performing under the baton of Gemma New leading the San Francisco Symphony (SFS), Ferrández delivered a consistently compelling account of Edward Elgar’s Opus 85 cello concerto in E minor. This is one of those concertos in which the soloist is in the spotlight from the very first thematic statement to the final cadence, and the attentive listener could appreciate every gesture in his delivery.

Taken as a whole, the concerto is a four-movement journey through a landscape of varying dispositions. It was clear that both conductor and soloist commanded a thorough grasp of the entire “lay of the land,” and the attentive listener could appreciate the dispositional qualities of every “way-station” delineating the overall journey. Elgar was at his most expressive when he conceived this concerto, and Ferrández brought every gesture of expression to the attention of the sharply attuned listener. As a result, many of those listeners may well have had those gestures still ringing in the ears, even while heading home after the program had concluded.

This account of Elgar was thus, as they say, “one for the books.” As expected, Ferrández responded to the audience reaction by offering an encore. As also might be expected, he turned to Pablo Casals as a source, following up on the rich sonorities of the concerto with the subdued simplicity of that cellist’s solo arrangement of the Catalan Christmas song “El cant dels ocells” (the song of the birds).

The concerto offering dominated the overall overture-concerto-symphony structure of the program. The evening began with a composition by Grażyna Bacewicz entitled simply “Overture.” She composed it in 1943 in Warsaw, which, at the time, was under German occupation during World War II. As a result, the music did not receive its first performance until September of 1945. Nevertheless, one could appreciate the intensity of the composer’s dispositions reflecting the circumstances surrounding her as she worked on this composition.

In contrast to the overture, the symphony bordered on the insipid. Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 56 (third) symphony in A minor, was inspired by a visit to Scotland. This is a four-movement composition in which each movement repeats its thematic material too many times with almost no sense of an overall journey. Presumably, the composer wanted to express his delight at the many encounters on his visit; but there is just too much “and then … and then” rhetoric in the overall structure. George Balanchine managed to draw audience attention a bit more effectively with his choreography, but even he realized that setting the first movement to ballet would be a hopeless case. Scotland is better honored by a glass of single malt than by any of Mendelssohn’s efforts!

Omni to Release a World Premiere Video

The current “title page” for the YouTube video being discussed

In a little over two week’s time, the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts will release its latest OMNI on-Location video. This release will be particularly important, however, because it will be a world premiere performance. “Toccata” is a recently composed work by Leo Brouwer, one of the movements of his “Sonata Elegíaca,” which he scored for two guitars. The performers on the video recording of this premiere occasion are Giovanni Masi and Lucio Matarazzo; and the video will capture the entirety of its performance, which took place in the Palazzo Filangieri, located in the municipality of San Potito Sannitico in Italy. (For those that do not know their Italian geography, this town is located inland to the north of Naples.) The above hyperlink will lead to the YouTube Web page for the video, and it will be available for viewing any time after 10 a.m. on the morning of Sunday, May 19.

Simon Rattle in Berlin: What Remains

Poster for Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (from Wikipedia, provided by DreamWorks Pictures, complies with Wikipedia non-free content policy and fair use under United States copyright law)

This final account of the anthology of recordings made by Simon Rattle with the Berlin Philharmonic may best be described as “odds and ends from the twentieth century.” That would account for all but one of the remaining CDs, since there is one “outlier,” which is the original soundtrack from the 2008 film Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. I must confess that I did not know that this movie existed, even though its cast included Dustin Hoffman, Alan Rickman, and Ben Whishaw.

Not long before I began my freshman year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a friend loaned me a couple of soundtrack albums based on films by Federico Fellini. This was a whole new genre for me; and, during my freshman year, I spent many happy hours at the Brattle Theatre catching up on Fellini’s films. The composer for those films was Nino Rota, who would eventually establish a name for himself on his own, particularly in opera.

The score for Perfume, on the other hand, was a joint effort by Tom Tykwer, Johnny Klimek, and Reinhold Heil, all performing on electronic gear. The Berlin Philharmonic is joined by the State Choir of Latvia along with three vocal soloists, sopranos Chen Reiss and Melanie Mitrano, and boy soprano Victor de Maizière. As is often the case for a product conceived by a committee, the music really does not hold up very well on its own (and, for that matter, the film did not do very well, particularly in the United States). Nevertheless, it was included in the anthology for the sake of completeness!

Where my own listening was concerned, the remaining selections all triggered different pangs of nostalgia. The most satisfying was Richard Strauss’ Opus 60, the suite of incidental music he composed for a performance of the Molière comédie-ballet, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. Jean-Baptiste Lully composed the music for Molière, but Strauss composed music for Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s adaptation of the play. His version plays up many of the eccentricities of the title character, making for an engaging listening experience. Unfortunately, on this CD, Opus 60 is preceded by Opus 40, the “Ein Heldenleben” tone poem, whose “protagonist” is even more laughable than Molière’s creation!

To some extent the revival of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana cantata also comes across as more than a bit laughable, half a century after it was all the rage. (Actually, it was already a butt of jokes when it showed up on television in the soundtrack for a cigar commercial.) Nevertheless, I have to say that I enjoyed the personalities evoked in the vocal solos by baritone Christian Gerhaher, tenor Lawrence Brownlee, and soprano Sally Matthews.

An entire CD is devoted to Carl Nielsen with Rattle conducting two of his concertos. The first of these is the flute concerto with Emmanuel Pahud as soloist. This is followed by Sabine Meyer taking the solo part in the clarinet concerto. The remainder of the album is the wind quintet with Pahud and Meyer joined by bassoonist Stefan Schweigert, Jonathan Kelly alternating between oboe and cor anglais, and Radek Baborák on French horn. While Nielsen’s music is no longer the “great discovery” it was during the second half of the last century, I have to confess that revisiting all three of these compositions was an enjoyable experience.

On the other hand, I am not quite sure what to make of Rattle’s decision to add Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” following the last two movements of Gustav Mahler’s ninth symphony. I suppose the conductor decided that, in the interest of filling out the CD, one good Adagio deserves another. Where my own listening was concerned, however, there was just too much cognitive dissonance!

Sunset Music and Arts: June, 2024

Next month tends to be “transitional.” On the one hand it sees the conclusion of several subscription series. However, as the month draws to a close, summer offerings, such as the Merola Opera Program, begin to get under way. This year Sunset Music and Arts will be “first out of the gate” with two distinctively diverse programs, both beginning at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday evenings.

For those not familiar with this concert series, it takes place at the Incarnation Episcopal Church, which is located in the Sunset at 1750 29th Avenue. General admission is $25 with a $20 rate for students and seniors. Tickets may be purchased online through Eventbrite.  Specifics are as follows, including hyperlinks for the purchase of tickets:

June 1: The month will begin with a recital by violinist Kenneth Renshaw, accompanied at the piano by Keisuke Nakagoshi. His program has not yet been finalized, but the major offering will be Edward Elgar’s Opus 82 duo sonata. This will be preceded by Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 35bis set of five “Melodies.” These were originally conceived as vocalized “songs without words” in his Opus 35. The remainder of the program remains to be announced.

Spruce Ritual musicians Nazan Aktas, Lucian Kano Balmer, Josh Mellinger, and Will Marsh (from the Sunsen Music and Arts online Calendar)

June 22: Spruce Ritual is an ensemble conceived and led by violinist Lucian Kano Balmer to explore relations between the western classical tradition and Hindustani music. The group released its first album, Spruce Ritual: The Way The Evening Speaks, in February of 2023; and, presumably, the Sunset program will include selections from this album. The other members of the ensemble are Charith Premawardhana on viola, cellist Nazan Aktas (who studied at the Ali Akbar College of Music), Will Marsh, who doubles on sitar and guitar, and tabla player Josh Mellinger.

Alchemist Jazz Quintet Coming to Mr. Tipple’s

News about jazz performances taking place at Mr. Tipple’s Jazz Club continues to be a “sometime thing.” Fortunately, I seem to be on the mailing lists of at least a few of the practicing artists here in San Francisco. So at least some of the news that the club itself overlooks still comes to my attention.

Alchemist Quintet members Greg German, Ted Burik, Michele Walther, John Kiskaddon, and Greg German (from the Mr. Tipple’s event page)

Such is the case with the Alchemist Quintet. This is a bit of a departure from the usual jazz quintet, since one of the front-line players is violinist Michele Walther. She is joined on the front line by saxophonist Doug Pet. Rhythm is provided by John Kiskaddon on piano, bassist Ted Burik, and Greg German on drums.

The quintet will perform 45-minute two sets on Wednesday, May 22nd, the first beginning at 7:30 p.m. and the second beginning an hour later at 8:30 p.m. For those that do not already know, Mr. Tipple’s is located at 39 Fell Street, on the south side of the street between Van Ness Avenue and Polk Street. The Fat Cat provides dim sum food, which includes hot dumplings and Hong Kong waffles. Drinks are available from a full bar. Both food and drink may be purchased separately from the admission fee. Tickets for admission may be purchased through the above hyperlinks attached to the start times.

Evgeny Kissin’s Uneven Piano Recital at Davies

Pianist Evgeny Kissin (photograph by Pierre Anthony, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony)

Last night pianist Evgeny Kissin returned to Davies Symphony Hall for his latest appearance in the Great Performers Series presented by the San Francisco Symphony. His last visit took place almost exactly two years ago, on May 2, 2022. As was the case on that occasion, the experience was more than a little uneven (at least to the attentive listener).

Nevertheless, Kissin definitely deserves credit for interesting planning. The program spanned almost exactly 100 years with a chronological account of music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Frédéric Chopin, Johannes Brahms, and Sergei Prokofiev. That chronology began with the Opus 90 sonata in E minor, completed in 1814 and the last of Beethoven’s “middle” sonatas. This was followed by two relatively brief Chopin selections composed in 1841 with consecutive opus numbers, the second of the two Opus 48 nocturnes, composed in the key of F-sharp minor, and the Opus 49 fantasy in F minor. After the intermission Kissin advanced to 1854 with the Brahms Opus 10 set of four ballades. He then concluded in the early twentieth century (1912) with Prokofiev’s Opus 14, his second piano sonata in D minor.

Kissin was at his best at the very beginning and the very end. He knew just how to honor the verbose tempo descriptions for the two Beethoven movements, and he did not let the composer’s obsession with detail impinge on his own capacity for expressiveness. At the other end, he presented the Prokofiev sonata as if he were introducing on old (if somewhat rambunctious) old friend. This came from a period when the composer was not afraid of sharp edges, many of which did not go down well with his contemporary audiences. Nevertheless, it is clear that Kissin enjoy sharing that rambunctiousness with his audience; and, for me at least, this was the most satisfying portion of the evening. Sadly, it seemed as if both Chopin and Brahms were being offered more from a sense of duty than from much interest on the part of the performer.

This year Kissin limited himself to three encores. (He took four in 2022.) He began with a Chopin mazurka, whose specifics he preferred not to announce. This was followed by the piano arrangement of the march from Prokofiev’s four-act opera, his Opus 33 The Love for Three Oranges. He then signed off with the penultimate waltz in Brahms’ Opus 39 collection of sixteen (originally for four hands on one keyboard), composed in the key of A major and probably the most familiar waltz in the set. The crowd went wild (as they say) for all of the encores but seemed to accept the quietude of resignation in the final selection. Personally, I was delighted by Kissin’s ability to distill so much expressiveness into such a brief gesture and wished there had been more of that distillation in the selections enumerated in the program book.

Simon Rattle in Berlin: 20th Century Britain

Simon Rattle conducting the Berlin Philharmonic (photograph by Monika Rittershaus, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, from Wikimedia Commons)

Given that Simon Rattle was born in Liverpool, one might have expected that, even during his tenure with the Berlin Philharmonic, he would have given more attention to “England's green and pleasant land” than is evident in the anthology of his recordings with that ensemble. The only British composer to be allocated an entire CD is Benjamin Britten. Nevertheless, where my own interests are concerned, that CD is definitely a good one. It accounts for the three major song cycles with instrumental accompaniment, the Opus 18 Les Illuminations, the Opus 31 Serenade, and the Opus 60 Nocturne. All of these are sung by tenor Ian Bostridge, and only horn player Radek Baborák is given credit on the CD sleeve for his contribution to Opus 31. At least some readers probably know that I am already familiar with the recordings that Britten himself made of all three of these composition; but I could still appreciate the “contemporary take” on this music while listening to Bostridge performing with Rattle.

The only other major work to be recorded was Gustav Holst’s Opus 32 suite, The Planets. I tend to blow hot and cold when I encounter this music in performance, but Rattle certainly gives the overall flow of the suite a creditable account. However, the recording is given a “++” treatment, which, as far as I am concerned, lives up to the old joke about filling a well-needed gap.

The first track to follow The Planets adds the “questionable one” beyond Neptune. “Pluto, the Renewer” was composed by Colin Mathews and dedicated to the memory of Imogen Holst. This is followed by Kaija Saariaho’s “Asteroid 4179: Toutatis,” Matthias Pintscher’s “towards Osiris,” and Mark-Anthony Turnage’s “Ceres.” (Yes, I know that Pintscher is German; but, since he seems to be big on astronomy, I can understand why he was included on the album! Also, since I have been interested in Saariaho’s music for pretty much as long as I have been at this writing gig, I cannot complain about her presence, even if she is not British!) “Ceres” is followed by the darker “Komarov’s Fall,” composed by Brett Dean and named after Vladimir Komarov, the Soviet cosmonaut, who was the first human to die in a space flight. All but the first of these “post-Planets” compositions were commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic.

That leaves only one remaining track, Thomas Adès’ “Tevot,” which is about twenty minutes in duration. Early in his tenure with the San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas seemed to show an interest in Adès’ music. His performances never really persuaded me to share that interest, nor did the television broadcast of The Exterminating Angel from the Metropolitan Opera. So it did not surprise me that “Tevot” left me (in the immortal words of Dorothy Fields for Jerome Kern’s “A Fine Romance” song) “as cold as yesterday’s mashed potatoes!”

Change of Conductor This Week at SFS

Conductor Gemma New (photograph by Ray Cox, courtesy of SFS)

Yesterday morning the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) announced that conductor Marta Gardolińska, scheduled to make her debut, regretfully had to withdraw due to a family illness. She will be replaced by Gemma New, who will be making her debut in the Orchestral Series but had previously conducted two programs during the 2019 summer season at the Frost Amphitheater on the Stanford University campus. The program will remain the same, and cellist Pablo Ferrández will still be the soloist in Edward Elgar’s Opus 85 cello concerto in E minor. The program will begin with Grażyna Bacewicz’ “Overture;” and the second half of the program will be devoted entirely to Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 56 symphony in A minor, his third, known by many as the “Scottish.”

This program will be given only two performances in Davies Symphony Hall on Friday, May 10, at 7:30 pm., and on Sunday, May 12, at 2 p.m. Tickets are available at prices from $25 to $150. They may be purchased online through hyperlinks on the event page for this concert. They are also being sold at the Davies Symphony Hall Box Office. The entrance (for both the Box Office and the concert hall) is on the south side of MTT Way (formerly Grove Street), located between Franklin Street and Van Ness Avenue.

Meg Okura and KevinHays: Debut Duo Album

Meg Okura and Kevin Hays (photograph by Tracy Yang, courtesy of AMT Public Relations)

This Friday will see the release of Lingering, a debut album for the duo of violinist Meg Okura and pianist Kevin Hays. As is often the case, Bandcamp has already created the Web page for this album and is accepting pre-orders. That Web page is particularly informative, since it includes an extended essay by jazz historian Scott Yanow.

Okura was classically trained at the Juilliard School; but, after she acquired all the appropriate degrees, she shifted her attention to jazz. Her “education in the field” then emerged through performances with musicians such as Lee Konitz, Michael Brecker, and Tom Harrell. Hays’ experiences, on the other hand, have included performing for the likes of Sonny Rollins, Joshua Redman, and Chris Potter.

One would have thought that the meeting of Okura and Hays would have sent sparks flying at first sight. However, after listening to this album several times, I have encountered nary a fizzle. Mind you, Okura’s technique is impressive; and there is no arguing over the acuity of her sense of pitch. Indeed, both performers have a solid command of their respective instruments.

What is lacking, though, is inventiveness. Where there is no end of opportunities for sharp edges, one encounters little more than bland familiar tropes. This is just not the sort of music, composed or improvised, that gets the juices flowing.

The Bleeding Edge: 5/6/2024

This month will begin with a moderately well-balanced offering of new announcements and previously reported events. The latter category involves two venues:

1. The Lab will present adventurous two-set programs on both Thursday and Friday evenings.
2. The Center for New Music has also planned two programs, but both of them will take place on Saturday at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., respectively.

Where the remaining events are concerned, there will be two familiar venues. Specifics are as follows:

Friday, May 10, 7 p.m., Medicine for Nightmares: This week’s installment of Other Dimensions in Sound, curated by reed player David Boyce, will feature two sets, each involving a different combo. The first of these will be the Evidence Trio, whose members are Kersti Abrams, playing alto saxophone, flute, and mbira, Andrew Joron on theremin, and bassist Michael Wilcox. This will be followed by the Diaspora Focii Collective, which is led by guitarist Mika Pontecorvo, who also works with electronics. The group also includes Abrams, playing her same variety of instruments. The other members of the group are Jaroba on bass clarinet and tenor saxophone, bassist Elijah Pontecorvo, and Mike Villarreal on drums.

Friday, May 10, and Saturday, May 11, 8 p.m., Audium: The Depths is a new multichannel sound composition and installation by Dave Shaff. He describes the sonorities as follows: “[L]iquid drips & drops land on sluggish synth drones. Horns improvise saturated melodies while flying above you. Wind whips at your front and back. A contrabass tickles your feet.”

Audium is located at 1616 Bush Street. Doors will open at 7:30 p.m. City Box Office has created a Web page for purchasing tickets. General admission (including the option for wheelchair accessibility) will be $30 with a $20 rate for students. A limited number of pay-what-you-can tickets will also be available.

Sunday, May 12, 5 p.m., Glen Park Station Bar: The venue will host a live album release show. The album, released by Edgetone Records, is the second in a series called FutureJazz. This one documents a live performance at the Cadillac Hotel, which took place last year. The musicians on this album, E. Doctor Smith and Peter McKibben, will be on hand to perform tracks from the album. The bar is located at 2816 Diamond Street. There will be no charge for admission, but the bartenders tend to assume that anyone entering will be a customer!

LIEDER ALIVE!: Mezzo, Cello, Piano

LIEDER ALIVE! performers Kindra Scharich, Jeffrey LaDeur, and Jennifer Culp (from the LIEDER ALIVE! Web page for the 2023/24 season)

Early yesterday evening, LIEDER ALIVE! concluded its twelfth annual Liederabend season. The vocalist was mezzo Kindra Scharich, accompanied at the piano by Jeffrey LaDeur. However, for the most part, the program consisted of trio performances with the addition of cellist Jennifer Culp (who also gave two duo performances with LaDeur).

The first half of the program was framed by Franz Schubert (the D. 943 “Auf dem Strom”) and Johannes Brahms (the second of the two Opus 91 songs, “Geistliches Wiegenlied”). (The titles translate as “on the river” and “sacred cradle-song,” respectively.) Robert Schumann was represented by a cello-piano duo, the second of his Opus 94 pieces, entitled simply “Romanze.” These three leading figures were joined by Alexander Borodin’s three songs for piano, voice, and cello, which he composed in 1854.

The second half of the program took in a much wider extent. The earliest selections were by Hector Berlioz (“La Captive”) and César Franck (“Le Sylphe”). The most recent work on the program was “Dream with me,” one of the songs that Leonard Bernstein composed for the Peter Pan musical. Between these “bookends” were selections by Amy Beach (“Chanson d’amour”) and Edwin Greene (“Sing me to sleep”). The cello-piano duo for this half of the program was the third movement (Andante) from Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Opus 19 cello sonata.

The entire offering proceeded at a fair clip, providing just enough time for the attentive listener to appreciate each selection and then compare it with what would follow. All three of the performers accounted for their parts with engaging clarity, and Scharich always captured just the right dispositions to frame the texts she was singing. I have been listening to Culp’s performances pretty much for as long as I have been doing my writing, and I have never been dissatisfied!

Taken as a whole, the program put the cap on an engaging season, leaving attentive listeners to look forward to the next season, which will establish a new “home” in the Old First Concerts series.