A Song Cycle Composed by Fred Hersch

Cover of the album being discussed

This Friday will see the release of the latest album of pianist Fred Hersch playing his own compositions. The title of the album is Suspended in Time; and, unless I am mistaken, it is the first album in which he serves as accompanist for a song cycle (which is the album’s title). The text is by Randi Charleston, who gives a spoken performance on the fourth track, entitled “Fever Dreams.” Vocalists Kate McGarry and Gabrielle Stravelli share the remaining six tracks, each performing on three of them. As is so often the case, Amazon.com has already created a Web page to process pre-orders.

Those following this site for some time probably know that, after my first encounter with one of Hersch’s instrumental albums, I have made it a point to follow his work as assiduously as possible. It is therefore more than a little painful to confess that there is absolutely nothing on the new release that seized my attention, let alone sustained it! Mind you, Hersch’s keyboard work is as reliable as ever; but there is no way in which it can elevate an attentive listener above Charleston’s tripe, whether it is recited or sung. Thus, while I can try my best to relish Hersch’s efforts as both composer and performer, I find myself ultimately drowned in a sea of insipidity.

Meanwhile, I shall wait patiently for Hersch’s next instrumental venture.

Hough’s Liszt-Chopin Major Undertaking

Last night pianist Stephen Hough (“Sir” now included on the program sheet) returned to Herbst Theatre for another program presented by San Francisco Performances (SFP). This follows up on last March, when he served as “guest artist” in a recital by the Esmé Quartet. The selection was Johannes Brahms’ Opus 34 piano quintet in F minor. For his return, now as a soloist, he remained in the nineteenth century, performing full-length sonatas by two of Brahms’ predecessors. In “order of appearance” these were Franz Liszt prior to the intermission and Frédéric Chopin at the conclusion.

A representative example of Stephen Hough’s approach to expressiveness (photograph by Hiroyuki Ito, courtesy of SFP)

Those familiar with the repertoire know that both of these selections are major undertaking. Sadly, Hough failed to provide a convincing account of either of them. Mind you, Liszt’s only piano sonata poses no end of challenges to even the most qualified performer, particularly if its three “movements” (if there be such) are performed without interruption. To be fair, Liszt commanded a broad spectrum of expressiveness in just about everything he composed; but sustaining all of that expressiveness over the course of half an hour is far from a walk in the park. To continue that metaphor, rising to that challenge requires endowing the attentive listener with some sense of “journey.” Hough never rose to that challenge, leaving the listener to contend with little more than one outburst after another.

The Chopin selection, on the other hand, was his Opus 58, the last of his three piano sonatas. This was composed in 1844 (the first having been composed in 1828). From a structural point of view, that “sense of journey” is much better defined, even if there is no shortage of diverting embellishments. However, in the context of the first half of the program, Hough played his way through that journey as if he were channeling Liszt again. It was as if he sought to drown the audience in notes just to make sure they came away feeling they got their money’s worth!

Mind you, there was other evidence of Hough’s notes-as-currency approach to music. The intermission was followed by his own “Sonatina Nostalgica. This was inspired by the village of Lymm in Cheshire, England; and the music serves as a “tour guide” for a visitor to that village. This was clearly a modest setting, but the overflow of notes in Hough’s score subjected that village to a tempest worthy of William Shakespeare’s imagination.

To be fair, however, listeners were warned of that plethora of notes as soon as the light’s dimmed. He began with three short pieces by Cécile Chaminade: “Automne,” “Autre fois” (another time), and the pastoral “Les sylvains.” Each of these was conceived with sensitive rhetoric of brevity, but it seemed as if Hough’s only concern was of how many notes he could pack into each of these brief intervals of time.

Things were a bit more tolerable in his first encore, the third “Warum?” (why) movement in Robert Schumann’s Opus 12 Fantasiestücke (fantasy pieces). This was followed by (presumably) Hough’s own fantasia take on the song “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” composed by the Sherman brothers (Richard M. and Robert B.) for the Walt Disney movie Mary Poppins. Sadly, it would have taken more than “a spoonful of sugar” to make Hough’s take on Disney to go down smoothly!

Those who enjoy the pleasures of piano music, whether playing it or listening to it, deserved better.

Scarfe to Return to Monument with Piano Recital

Pianist Ian Scarfe (from his Web page for upcoming events)

Last year Ian Scarfe, Director of the Trinity Alps Chamber Music Festival, brought his musicians to Monument SF for a performance of the suite that Aaron Copland extracted from the music he composed for Martha Graham’s “Appalachian Spring” as performed in its original version for thirteen instruments. Next week he will return, this time to present a solo piano recital. As many may expect, he has prepared an engagingly diverse program.

The “traditional” works on the program will be two suites from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, respectively. The first of these will be Edvard Grieg’s Opus 40, usually known as the Holberg Suite. This will be followed by Le Tombeau de Couperin by Maurice Ravel. Both of these suites reflect on past centuries, and both of them were also orchestrated by their respective composers. He will also perform his own transcription of the music composed by Philip Glass for a sound track for the 1931 Dracula film. Other composers on the program will link past and present, with Johann Sebastian Bach and Johannes Brahms on one end and Radiohead and Aphex Twin on the other.

Once again, the performance will take place in the Monument event space, which is located in SoMa at 140 9th Street. It will begin at 7 p.m. next week on Thursday, February 13. As in the past, ticketing is being managed by Groupmuse, which has created a Web page for reservations.

The Bleeding Edge: 2/3/2025

This will be a relatively quiet week with two new events complemented by two previously reported ones. Both of the latter are the first two performances of this month to take place at The Lab, on Friday, February 7, and Saturday, February 8, respectively. These will be perfectly balanced by two new events. Both of them will also be taking place on Friday, each at a familiar venue, respectively, as follows:

Medicine for Nightmares, 7 p.m.: This week the Other Dimensions in Sound concert curated and hosted by Boohaabian multi-reed player extraordinaire David Boyce will present a two-set program. One of the sets will be a solo harp performance by Maya. The other will see the return of the familiar duoB combo, whose members are Lisa Mezzacappa on bass and drummer Jason Levis. As most readers probably know by now, the venue is a bookstore 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.

Vernaculars musicians (clockwise from upper-right): Chris Trinidad, Francis Wong, Karl Evangelista, and Jimmy Biala (from their BayImproviser event page)

Bird & Beckett Books and Records, 8:30 p.m.: This title of this program will be Vernaculars Plays Wong Works. Vernaculars is a quartet that explores the intersection between jazz, improvised music, and Filipino tradition. The performers are percussionist Jimmy Biala, Karl Evangelista on guitar, bassist Chris Trinidad, and Francis Wong on saxophone. For those that do not already know, the venue is located at 653 Chenery Street, a short walk from the Glen Park station that serves both BART and Muni. Admission will be a cover charge of $20. Given the limited space of the venue, reservations are necessary and can be made by calling 415-586-3733. The phone will be answered during regular store hours, which are between noon and 6 p.m. on Tuesday through Sunday. This performance will also be live-streamed through hyperlinks to Facebook and YouTube on the Bird & Beckett Web page while the show is in progress.

David Oistrakh’s “Concertos++” Recordings

David Oistrakh (photograph taken at a 1954 performance in Dresden, from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license)

In continuing my examination of the 31 CDs classified as Premières, Rarities & Live Performances in the Warner Remastered Edition box set collection of recordings of performances by Russian violinist David Oistrakh, the above “Concerto++” was conceived to account for not only the concerto genre but also chamber music with piano. (String quartets will be examined in the next article.) This accounts for seven CDs, three for chamber music and the other four for the concertante genre. The timeline is a wide one, with Johann Sebastian Bach at one end and Paul Hindemith at the other. As with my previous account of the “Rarities” category, I shall try to account for this one through categories, all of which are relatively modest in size.

The largest of those categories accounts for performances of music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. This consists of one album of sonatas (with two different accompanists, Lev Oborin and Vladimir Yampolsky), a “concertante and chamber music” album, and one that couples a concerto (K. 218 in D major) with concertos of Jean Sibelius and Henri Vieuxtemps, all with piano accompaniment. Personally, I was satisfied with the light touch that Oistrakh takes to Mozart, particularly when performing with his two accompanists, Lev Oborin and Vladimir Yampolsky. He clearly had a playful side, which is less evident in the more “serious” performances in this collection.

His Bach repertoire consists of four duo sonatas (BWV 1015 in A major, BWV 1016 in E major, BWV 1018 in F minor, and BWV 1019 in G major) and two concertos (BWV 1041 in A minor and the “Brandenburg” BWV 1049 in G major). These may not be “historically informed;” but they are given clear and expressive accounts that would have satisfied listeners in the Fifties. Where the nineteenth century is concerned, I was particularly glad to encounter Ernest Chausson’s Opus 21, his “Concert” scored for violin, piano, and string quartet. I also appreciated Oistrakh’s interest in Claude Debussy, even if he could only approach his music through violin-piano arrangements by Alexandre Roelens.

In many respects, this is a “usual suspects” collection with a certain nineteenth-century bias towards Max Bruch, represented by both his Opus 26 (first) concerto in G minor and his more familiar Opus 46 “Scottish Fantasy” in E-flat major. With the notable exception of Hindemith, many listeners will associate this collection with the repertoire of Jascha Heifetz; but that should be no surprise. The two of them were contemporaries born in Russia; but Oistrakh remained in Russia, eventually to be honored as a People’s Artist of the USSR  in 1953. Heifetz may have the broader recording legacy, but there is still much to be gained in examining Oistrakh’s “alternative” perspective on repertoire.

Old First Concerts: Choro from Canta, Violino!

Canta, Violino! musicians Edinho Gerber, Andrew Finn Magill, and Clarice Cast (screen shot from the YouTube video of the performance)

Late yesterday afternoon Old First Concerts presented a performance by a Brazilian trio called Canta, Violino! (Portuguese for “Sing, violin!). The group was led by American violinist Andrew Finn Magill, who moved to Brazil in 2014. His Brazilian colleagues were Brazilians Edinho Gerber, playing a seven-string guitar, and Clarice Cast on percussion.

None of the selections on the program were familiar. Some were composed by Magill. All the other selections probably had Brazilian sources. This made for a more than generous journey of discovery of the choro repertoire, but any listener wishing for at least one hint of familiarity was disappointed. Thus, while Magill tended to provide an informative verbal introduction for each selection, the program began to feel like “one damned thing after another” by the time it hit the halfway mark.

While all three of the trio members had a solid command of their instruments, neither ensemble nor solo work did much to seize and maintain the attention of a serious listener.

Back to the Dream-World

[updated 2/2/ 1:50 p.m.: Prior to the correction of a spelling error, this article first appeared in October of 2008.]

Today's performance by the Russian Chamber Orchestra under Alexander Vereshagin as part of the October Russian Music Festival organized by the Noontime Concerts™ series at Old St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco reminded me that Die Tote Stadt is not the only theatrical composition that spends the better part of its plot in the dream-world. Marius Petipa's ballet Raymonda, with music by Alexander Glazunov, goes into the dream-world in the second scene of its first act and remains there for all of its second act. Since this ballet was first presented in 1898, it predates The Interpretation of Dreams; and I doubt that Petipa would have had quite the analytic interest in dreams that occupied Sigmund Freud. Nevertheless, I once saw the Boston Ballet perform excerpts from Swan Lake as entertainment for a convention of the American Psychiatric Association, prefaced with remarks by dance critic Doris Hering to the effect that any prince who tells his mother that he wants to marry a swan must be ripe for analysis.

Similarly, one could approach Raymonda in terms of the psyche of its protagonist, who is basically a young woman who gets cold feet on her wedding night and dreams of being abducted by a Saracen chief who her betrothed had conquered in the Crusades. However, while both the music and the libretto of Die Tote Stadt delve deeply into the psyche of a man obsessed with his deceased wife, Raymonda is best known for the easily danceable music that Glazunov provided. Vereshagin presented a suite of four of those movements, all of which served primarily to revive memories of past ballet performances (in my case the American Ballet Theatre production staged by Rudolf Nureyev). Basically, this means that through Vereshagin the music conveyed its own sense of motion, sufficient to breath life into even the vaguest memories of a ballet company versed in the classical Russian style.

The rest of Vereshagin's program was also theatrical in nature, divided between opera and dance. While they were new to me, I suspect that the "Gavotte" and "Valse" that concluded the program were extracted from one (or two) of the "Ballet Suites" that Dmitri Shostakovich had composed for orchestra, not always with specific choreography in mind. I also suspect that the arrangement for chamber orchestra (strings and one percussion player) was Vereshagin's and was effective enough that one did not miss the usual lush orchestral sound characteristic of the composer.

On the opera side the program opened with the Polovtsian songs (rather than the more familiar dances) from the opera Prince Igor, by Alexander Borodin. Like the dances, these songs (again arranged for chamber orchestra without any vocalists) captured many of the idiomatic folk elements that can be found in the dances. Much of the rhetoric is similar, but there is a clear sense of a vocal line and accompaniment. The other operatic excerpt was the intermezzo from Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride.

Given Vereshagin's tendency to go "pops" with an encore, I wondered whether or not this concert would end with an encore of the "Tahiti-Trot," Shostakovich's orchestration (and arrangement) of Vincent Youmans' "Tea for Two." Those unfamiliar with this side of Shostakovich will probably appreciate the Wikipedia entry for this work:

The "Tahiti Trot" is Shostakovich's 1927^[1] orchestration of "Tea for Two" from the musical No, No, Nanette by Vincent Youmans. Shostakovich wrote it in response to a challenge from conductor Nikolai Malko: after the two listened to the song on record, Malko bet 100 roubles that Shostakovich could not completely re-orchestrate the song from memory in under an hour. Shostakovich took him up and won, completing the orchestration in around 45 minutes. The "Tahiti Trot" was first performed in 1928^[2], and has been a popular encore ever since. It was used as an entr'acte for the ballet The Age of Gold at the suggestion of conductor Alexander Gauk^{[citation needed]}.

However, the joy of this work really lies in Shostakovich's use of his orchestral palette; and I doubt that Vereshagin would have been able to maintain the Shostakovich flavor in a chamber orchestra version!

Two Earplay Concerts Added for This Month

Some readers may have noticed that my efforts to keep up with the Earplay chamber ensemble tend to be (in the immortal words of Ira Gershwin) “a sometime thing.” Last year around this time, they began the 2024 season at the Old First Presbyterian Church, presenting a program entitled The Poetry of Physics. This year they will be presenting two different program during the month of February at two decidedly different venues. Specifics are as follows:

Saturday, February 15, 1 p.m., Noe Valley Ministry: The first program has a title that speaks for itself: Chamber Music of Peter Josheff. Those familiar with Earplay probably known that Josheff is not only the clarinetist but also a founding member. For this performance, he will be joined by Earplay colleagues Tod Brody on flutes and pianist Brenda Tom. Cellist Thalia Moore will also participate, but only as a narrator! Baritone Wilford Kelly will also perform as a special guest artist. Titles and dates of pieces to be presented are as follows:

• Sutro Tower in the Fog (2011)
• Root Cellar (2024)
• Air (originally entitled “Big Brother”) (2014)
• Caught Between Two Worlds (final version, 2009)

There will also be selections from longer works. Between 2018 and 2023, Josheff composed four books of “songs” for spoken voice and piano: Images from the Past, Warped Oracle, Rag Wrung Dry, and Exquisite Corpus. The texts are drawn from Josheff’s own poems, dreams, nature writing, stories, and journal entries. Finally, there will be two excerpts from 3 Hands, based on a libretto by Jaime Robles about three hands of poker played by six “cheerful good-natured guys.” The selections will be the overture and the “Ice Cream” aria.

The exterior of the Dandelion Chocolate factory on 16th Street (from the Tock Web page for the venue)

Saturday, February 22, 7:30 p.m., Dandelion Chocolate: The title of this program will be Schoenberg…and Chocolate; and, as can be seen above, the performance will take place in a chocolate factory. It has been prepared by composer Ben Sabey, who is also a member of the Earplay Board. The program will be organized around two string trios. Moore will return to her usual position as cellist, performing with Terrie Baune on violin and violist Ellen Ruth Rose. The program will feature Arnold Schoenberg’s Opus 45 string trio. This will be coupled with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 563 in E-flat major, a six movement divertimento composed in 1788 (the year in which he composed is last three symphonies).

Most readers probably know by now that the Noe Valley Ministry is located at 1021 Sanchez Street, between 23rd Street and Elizabeth Street. Dandelion Chocolate, on the other hand, is less familiar; and the factor is located at 2600 16th Street on the northeast corner of Harrison Street. (I see it every week when I have a medical appointment at UCSF in Mission Bay.) Information about ticketing will be found through the above two hyperlinks.

Familiar Faces at Detroit Symphony Orchestra

Photograph by George Nelidoff of composer Florence Price (circa 1940, Wikipedia page from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Once again my wife and I enjoyed dinner at home while watching the latest “free live HD webcast” presented by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO). The program was of particular interest due to the two visitors for the occasion. The concerto soloist was violinist Randall Goosby, and the guest conductor was Christian Reif. During his tenure with the San Francisco Symphony (SFS), Reif served as conductor of the SFS Youth Orchestra. Goosby was one of the four SFS Spotlight Series concerts in the spring of 2022, accompanied at the piano by Zhu Wang. He then made his debut as an SFS soloist the following September, performing Florence Price’s D minor (second) violin concerto.

That concerto began yesterday’s DSO concert. I must confess that, because I encounter this music so seldom, it had pretty much vanished from memory. Nevertheless, the listening experience was as stimulating as it had been in the past. Goosby was also bold enough to include his encore explicitly in the program. This was his orchestral arrangement of “Adoration,” which Price had originally composed for organ and which Goosby had recorded in the setting for violin and piano on his Roots album.

This “Price pairing” was coupled with a performance of “Fantastica,” the title of Jimmy López’ fifth symphony. Reif introduced this music, explaining that it was inspired by Michael Ende’s fantasy novel The Neverending Story (Die unendliche Geschichte in the original German). This was a major literary undertaking, which eventually found its way to a television series. As might be guessed, that made for far too much content than could be carried by a single symphony. While López’ capacity for rich instrumentation was engaging, it was difficult to sustain attention across his multi-movement structure.

The intermission was followed by a pair of Russian selections. The first selection was “The Enchanted Lake” by Anatoly Lyadov, given the subtitle “fairy tale scene.” The Wikipedia page for this music includes the following quote from French musicologist André Lischke:

The whole bewitching effect is due to the texture of the instrumentation, to the harmonic metamorphoses, and to the figurations which translate the quivering of the water (divided strings) and the sparkling of the stars which are reflected there (flute, celesta), harp).

It would be fair to say that the music has more to do with scenery than with any fairy tale narrative. However, the duration usually runs for less than ten minutes, sufficient time to enjoy the composer’s diversity of sonorities without tiring of them.

“The Enchanted Lake” was followed by Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 131, his final (seventh) symphony, composed in the key of C-sharp minor. This provided a perfect opportunity to appreciate the DSO resources in their entirety. Reif managed that entire scope with a steady and confident hand. His chemistry with the musicians could not have been better. This work may not have presented Prokofiev at his finest, but Reif knew how to deliver it a manner that would sustain attention from beginning to end.

Next SFP Guitar Recital will Share with Sarod

Sharon Isbin and Amjad Ali Khan (from their SFP Web page)

The next program in the San Francisco Performances (SFP) Guitar Series will be a “cross cultural” affair. Guitarist Sharon Isbin will share the stage with three masters of the sarod, the Indian “cousin” of the Spanish guitar. As is always the case, this event will be co-produced with the Dynamite Guitars concert season presented by the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts. The sarod performers will be Amjad Ali Khan and his two sons, Amaad Ali Bangash and Ayaan Ali Bangash. As is almost always the case with Indian classical music, the performance will also include percussion on tabla, performed by Amit Kavthekar. The program will be based on the album Strings for Peace, which was released in 2020.

This performance will begin, as usual, at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 22. Also as usual, the venue will be Herbst Theatre, which is located at 401 Van Ness Avenue, on the southwest corner of McAllister Street and directly across Van Ness from City Hall. SFP has created its own Web page for online ticket purchases. Tickets for the Boxes and Orchestra range between $60 and $70. The remaining tickets are in the Dress Circle and the Balcony, with prices between $50 and $70.

A Pre-School Metaphor for a Pre-School Show

The members of Sandbox Percussion: Ian Rosenbaum, Victor Caccese, Terry Sweeney, and Jonny Allen (from their Web site home page)

Last night the San Francisco Performances Pivot Festival concluded with a performance of Andy Akiho’s full-evening composition Seven Pillars. The players were the four members of the Sandbox Percussion quartet of Ian Rosenbaum, Jonny Allen, Terry Sweeney, and Victor Caccese. Allen provided a rich introduction to this music through his program notes, complete with a diagram of the composition’s episodes and another presumably showing the physical disposition of those pillars.

This was clearly a major cognitive undertaking. Sadly, the music itself was anything but cognitive. Granted, the percussionists had a keen sense of rhythm, particularly the polyrhythms that emerged when the full ensemble was performing. That diagram also suggested the significance of symmetry through the way in which the solo episodes were interleaved between the pillars. Unfortunately, none of that significance had much to do with what the performers were actually playing, making the entire evening feel like little more than (as Winston Churchill put it) “one damned thing after another!”

Personally, I think the quartet was taking their name too seriously. They were too busy playing with their metaphorical pails and shovels to care very much whether others might be listening to (or even watching) them. There was clearly a lot of talent up there on the Herbst Theatre stage. However, when it came to presenting that talent to the audience, there was just too much self-indulgence on the part of the performers. Perhaps they are more committed to their efforts when playing for friends in a SoHo loft!

Korngold’s Only Symphony: A “Deluxe” Edition

Erich Wolfgang Korngold at the piano on the cover of the new recording of his only symphony (from the Amazon.com Web page)

According to my records, today is the day when Amazon.com announced the release of The Korngold Symphony. Erich Wolfgang Korngold composed only one symphony, his Opus 40, written in the key of F-sharp major. Korngold was born in Moravia (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) in 1897. At the request of motion picture director Max Reinhardt, he moved to Hollywood, where he composed scores for sixteen films, many of which were swashbucklers. However, his symphony, which he completed in 1952, was dedicated to the memory of Franklin D. Roosevelt. This was particularly the case for the Adagio: Lento movement; and the author of the symphony’s Wikipedia page cites that movement as “in the tradition of Anton Bruckner.” None of the other movements follow up on that tradition; and Korngold appropriated the military song “Over There” for the Finale!

My primary experience with Korngold has been through his opera Die tote Stadt, which was first performed in Germany in December of 1920. I had the good fortune to attend the performance by the San Francisco Opera in September of 2008. While the instrumentation for this opera was rich in its sonorities, the symphony gave Korngold the opportunity to explore an even wider scope of instrumental sounds. One can appreciate that palette of those sonorities in the performance by the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana conducted by John Mauceri.

However, that performance accounts for only one of the two CDs in the release. The other consists of excerpts from the symphony performed at the piano by Korngold himself. This is one of the many recordings maintained by the Korngold Family Archives. One even encounters the voice of Korngold himself announcing each of the excerpts. As one might guess, the restoration of the piano performance reveals far more than the composer’s commentary!

To be fair, I am just beginning to get my head around the orchestral qualities of this symphony. It would be fair to say that I would be even better informed had I the opportunity to listen to music in performance. In the absence of such an occasion, I can at least acknowledge that the accompanying booklet is a wealth of information, not only in its text but also in its collection of archival photographs.

I owned a CD recording of Die tote Stadt decades before I had the opportunity to see a fully-staged production. Nevertheless, I was well-prepared to see that opera performed, having become acquainted with the music. I plan to make just as much an acquaintance with Opus 40, building up a familiarity in the hope that I shall eventually encounter a concert performance!

Sam Reider to Return to Noe Music with Friends

According to my records, accordionist Sam Reider last visited the Noe Valley Ministry for a Noe Music recital about two years ago. Leading a group called The Human Hands, he presented a program of “modern folk music.” I encountered him again last year at the American Spring concert presented by the musicians of the Trinity Alps Chamber Music Festival, led by Founder and Director Ian Scarfe, who performed his six-movement suite Hyampom, named after the town in the Trinity Alps where Reider had spent his childhood.

Sam Reider (left) performing with Jorge Glem (from the Web page for purchasing tickets for his next Noe Music performance)

In a little over a week’s time, Reider will return to Noe Valley. This time he will be joined by Jorge Glem, a master of the Venezuelan cuatro, a plucked instrument with four nylon strings. Program details have not yet been provided and will probably be announced from the stage. There will also be a “guest appearance” by Brazilian bassist Munir Hossn (which may involve performances of his own compositions).

This event will take place on Sunday, February 9, beginning at 4 p.m. The Noe Valley Ministry is located at 1021 Sanchez Street, between 23rd Street and Elizabeth Street. General admission will be $45 with $60 for seats in the first few rows. Student tickets are available for $15. Noe Music has prepared a Web page for purchasing all three levels of tickets.

Blomstedt Bridges Nineteenth Century at Davies

This afternoon in Davies Symphony Hall, Herbert Blomstedt conducted the San Francisco Symphony in the first of three performances of this week’s program. Blomstedt was Michael Tilson Thomas’ predecessor as Music Director, and his appearance was supported by the Louise M. Davies Guest Concert Fund. In addition, the Thursday matinee concerts are endowed by a gift in memory of Rhoda Goldman.

The program itself was the first of four in a special subscription series entitled Favorites in Focus. As I previously observed, the selections for all four programs are “firmly grounded in the nineteenth century;” so what made this program particularly interesting was that it consisted of only two compositions, each close to one of the ends of the century. The first of these was Franz Schubert’s D. 485 (fifth) symphony in B-flat major, which he completed on October 3, 1816. The intermission was then followed by Johannes Brahms’ Opus 68, his first symphony, composed over the course of 21 years and first performed on November 4, 1876.

Herbert Blomstedt, shortly after his 97th birthday, leading the Vienna Philharmonic at the annual Salzburg Festival (photograph by Marco Borrelli from a 2024 New York Times article by Joshua Barone reporting from Salzburg)

Readers that have followed this site for some time probably know by now that I try never to miss an opportunity to observe Blomstedt in action as a conductor. If that seems more than a little urgent, it is because he is now 97 years old; and the fact that he continues to lead international orchestras impels me to keep track of every visit he makes to Davies. Furthermore, there is a rhetoric of similar urgency in Brahms’ symphony, particularly in the two outer movements, while each of all four of the movements presents the attentive listener with a rich palette of instrumental sonorities. Thus, between all of my past encounters with this symphony, both in the concert hall and in my collection of recordings, this afternoon kept me on the edge of my seat with eyes consistently darting from one section in the ensemble to another.

Where Schubert is concerned, D. 485 is the earliest of his nine symphonies to receive consistently regular attention in concert programming. In the absence of brass and percussion, the music is not as stirring as many familiar works that would be composed later in the century. Furthermore, while Blomstedt (as always) made it a point to honor every repeat sign, one could come away with a sense that Schubert was only deploying repetition because he assumed that he was supposed to do so. Nevertheless, even with his body language limited by his age, Blomstedt knew how to maintain the attention of the serious listener.

As a result, I left Davies this afternoon with the feeling of an afternoon well spent and a strong desire to capture my impressions in writing while they were still fresh in my mind!

Idris Ackamoor Plans Four Performances in SF

Idris Ackamoor performing with The Pyramids in Karlsruhe, Germany in the summer of 2011 (from the YouTube Web page of this concert)

Last season marked the 50th anniversary of Idris Ackamoor’s performing career, primarily on alto and tenor saxophones but also as a composer given to exploring other instruments. He is now going strong in his 2025 home season with a touring schedule that will include four performances within the San Francisco city limits, each at a different venue. Available specifics are as follows:

Sunday, February 16, 7:30 p.m., Bird & Beckett Books and Records: This will be a quartet performance with rhythm provided by Bobby Cobb on guitar, bassist Mark Heshima Williams, and Randall Merritt on drums. The venue is located at 653 Chenery Street, a short walk from the Glen Park station that serves both BART and Muni. Admission has not yet been announced, but it is usually a cover charge of $25. Given the limited space of the venue, reservations are necessary and can be made by calling 415-586-3733. The phone will be answered during regular store hours, which are between noon and 6 p.m. on Tuesday through Sunday.

Wednesday, February 19, 8 p.m., The Chapel: This event has not yet been listed on the Web site for The Chapel. Ackamoor will perform in a trio led by guitarist Nate Mercereau. Percussion will be provided by Carlos Niño. The Chapel is located in the Mission at 777 Valencia Street.

Saturday, April 9, 8 p.m., The Lab: Ackamoor will lead his Afrofuturist jazz pioneers The Pyramids. The program will feature selections from their new album Artistic Being. Once again, the event has not yet been listed on the venue’s Web site.

Sunday, June 15, SFJAZZ Center: This will be a full-ensemble performance by the Idris Ackamoor Ankhestra; unfortunately, this event has not yet been listed on the SFJAZZ Calendar Web page, meaning that even the time of the performance has not yet been finalized.

Clearly, much of Ackamoor’s schedule is still somewhat premature; but his faithful followers now know which dates to hold!

Pivot Festival Begins with Celebration of Gorey

During his lifetime Edward Gorey was known primarily along the New York-Boston corridor as an author and illustrator of odd little books that milked humor from the macabre. His works were anthologized after his death by Berkley Windhover Books in three Amphigorey volumes. I have been a “faithful follower” since my undergraduate days in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and those three volumes remain a treasured corner in my generously-endowed library.

Cover of the book that inspired Carla Kihlstedt’s 26 Little Deaths (from Wikipedia, fair use under the copyright law of the United States)

Last night in Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Performances Pivot Festival began with a full-evening composition by Carla Kihlstedt, who performed as both vocalist and violinist. Her libretto was inspired by Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies, which was published in 1963 (the year in which I first encountered Gorey’s books at the Paperback Booksmith store in Harvard Square). Gashlycrumb is an alphabet book in which each letter of the alphabet introduces a child who comes to a bad end. So it was that Kihlstedt took this book and turned it into a cantata entitled 26 Little Deaths.

Since I was not sure what to expect last night, I brought along my copy of Amphigorey, in case I wished to consult the illustrations on each of the pages of The Gashlycrumb Tinies for reference. (The words had been familiar to me for quite some time. I even recall my composition teacher Ezra Sims setting them to music.) Those references tended to be helpful, since there was already a fair amount of activity on stage. 26 Little Deaths also included performances by pianist Sarah Cahill, the members of the Del Sol Quartet (violinists Hyeyung Sol Yoon and Benjamin Kreith, violist Charlton Lee, and cellist Kathryn Bates), Sandbox Percussion (Ian Rosenbaum, Terry Sweeney, Jonny Allen, and Victor Caccese), and five visitors from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (students and alumni), all conducted by Gabriel Kahane, who also served as Master of Ceremonies.

This may seem like a generous number of resources to assemble for a little alphabet book. However, the “Gorey Universe” is an expansive one, full of a diversity of rhetorical devices both in the texts and in Gorey’s illustrations for each of the letters of the alphabet. I have to confess that it was hard for me to repress the nostalgic feelings in my recollections of each encounter with a new Gorey book. More often than not, the text was grotesque; but there always seemed to be a twinkle in the author’s eye. (Except when he had to autograph books in the back room at the Gotham Book Store for Christmas sales. Then one heard howls of despair reflecting those images of the damned in Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment!)

Kihlstedt managed to find just the right path along which to negotiate all of Gorey’s twists and turns between the grotesque and the twinkles. Yes, her instrumentation was diverse; but so were the individual illustrations in Gashlycrumb, leading the attentive reader from one surprise to the next. Personally, I went in to 26 Little Deaths worrying that the performance would not capture the same spirit that those of us of Gorey’s generation had experienced. However, those worries had dispersed long before 26 Little Deaths had reached its halfway mark. Kihlstedt “got the spirit;” and Kahane knew exactly how to lead his ensemble to convey that spirit.

David Oistrakh’s Rarities on Warner

Readers may recall that last week I began my venture into the 31 CDs classified as Premières, Rarities & Live Performances in the Warner Remastered Edition box set collection of recordings of performances by Russian violinist David Oistrakh. This began with an examination of the two CDs identified as Early Recordings. I am now in a position to discuss those albums associated with the “Rarities” category.

The most unique of these is the complete recording of a recital that Oistrakh performed in Moscow on February 16, 1960. He was accompanied by Vladimir Yampolsky; and the “heart” of the program consisted of three sonatas, each from a different century. Oistrakh began with Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1019 duo sonata in G major. He then leap-frogged into the late Romantic period with the last of Johannes Brahms’ three violin sonatas, Opus 108 in D minor. Late Brahms was followed by the Opus 1 of Karen Khachaturian (nephew of Aram), a three-movement sonata without a key specification.

Presumably, the rest of the album involved the encore selections, of which there were five, most of which were probably unfamiliar to much of the audience. Oistrakh began with the prelude-fugue coupling that constituted a solo violin partita by Alfred Mendelssohn. This was followed by the Opus 7 “Ciaccona” by Giovanni Battista Vitali, composed in 1682 for two violins and continuo violone and arranged for violin and piano by Léopold Charlier. This was followed by Oistrakh’s own arrangement of the sixth of the nine piano arrangements by Franz Liszt of “valses-caprices” by Franz Schubert. The encores were concluded with two works by twentieth-century composers: Sergei Prokofiev (his “Melody,” Opus 35b, Number 3) and Maurice Ravel (the familiar “Tzigane”).

Sergei Taneyev (from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Two of the CDs are identified as “Sonata Rarities.” They live up to that title through the composers they represent (in order of appearance): Nikolai Medtner, Mieczysław Weinberg, Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov, Sergei Taneyev, Zara Levina, and Wilhelm Stenhammar. There is also a “Bravura” album, which is framed by Niccolò Paganini at the beginning (with five of his Opus 1 caprices, beginning and concluding with arrangements by Fritz Kreisler and Leopold Auer, respectively) and Pablo de Sarasate’s Opus 25 (“Carmen Concert Fantasy”) at the end.

Finally, there is an album classified as “Vignettes.” This consists of 21 tracks, all of which are shorter than ten minutes in duration. Nine of the tracks are premiere releases. They are framed by arrangements by Carl Flesch of arias by George Frideric Handel at the beginning and the “Mazurka-oberek” by Alexander Glazunov on the final track.

Personally, I can attest to the “Rarities” classification. Yes, there were many familiar encounters (which the reader will easily recognize above). However, my mind is still trying to “digest” the abundance of “first contacts” I experienced while listening to the six CDs in this category!

Greenberg to Present Valentine’s Day Program

One week from today Ronny Michael Greenberg will take a break from his JIVE (Jewish Innovative Voices and Experiences) programming to present a more secular (and seasonal) offering. The title of his next program is OPERALOHA With Love. This will be a celebration of Valentine’s Day in which, as Greenberg has put it (with appropriate punctuation) “Opera meets Aloha!”

Poster for the event being discussed showing pianist Ronny Michael Greenberg with the vocalists he will accompany (left to right): Christopher Oglesby, Maria Valdes, Aivale Cole, and Jongwon Han (from the Eventbrite Web page for this performance)

The former will be highlighted by the popular quartet “Bella figlia dell'amore” from Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Rigoletto. Selections for the latter will include “Honolulu City Lights,” “Hanalei Moon,” and “Maui Girl,” along with some standards, such as “My Funny Valentine” and “Besame Mucho” (both appropriate for the season). Greenberg will provide piano accompaniment for four vocalists with international backgrounds: sopranos Maria Valdes (Cuban-American) and Aivale Cole (Samoan-New Zealand), American tenor Christopher Oglesby, and Korean bass-baritone Jongwon Han. Flamenco guitarist Freddy Clarke and Lenny San Jose on ukulele will also contribute to the instrumental accompaniment.

This show will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, February 5, beginning at 7:30 p.m. General admission will be $85; but, in honor of Valentine’s Day, a couple will be admitted with a pair of “Lovebird Tickets” for $120. Eventbrite has created a Web page through which these payments can take place. The performance will take place at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, which is located at 1111 O’Farrell Street, just to the west of Franklin Street.

American Bach Discovery Series: Handel Opera

Polyphemus catching Acis and Galatea “in the act” (sculpture by Auguste Ottin for the Medici Fountain in the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris, courtesy of American Bach)

The second of the three Discovery Series concerts to be presented by American Bach will take place in a little less than a month’s time. The program will be devoted entirely to a concert performance of Handel’s HWV 49 opera Acis and Galatea. The title character Acis is a young shepherd from Sicily. He falls in love with the sea-nymph Galatea. However, the son of Poseidon (God of the sea) is the one-eyed giant Polyphemus. His desire for Galatea is so strong that he crushes Acis with a boulder. However, Galatea maintains her love for Acis by transforming him into a bubbling fountain. (In the immortal words of Anna Russell, “I’m not making this up, you know!”)

The title role of Galatea will be sung by Hélène Brunet, whose last appearance with American Bach was in the summer of 2023, when she was the soprano soloist in the annual performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 232 Mass in B minor. Tenor James Reese will take the role of Acis. He also had a “Mass experience” in San Francisco in 2023; but this was when he contributed to the performance of Georg Muffat’s “Missa in labore requies” (which required eight soloists) for a Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale concert. Another American Bach “veteran” will be bass-baritone Mischa Bouvier as Polyphemus. This will be a major change from his American Bach appearance last year in March, when he sang the “Christus” texts for Bach’s BWV 245 St John Passion. The final visiting soloist will be tenor Michael Jankosky, who will sing the role of the shepherd Silvio. His last appearance as a guest soloist was with the San Francisco Choral Society during their Summer Festival Chorus performance at Davies Symphony Hall in August of 2023.

This performance will take place in St. Mark’s Lutheran Church at 1111 O’Farrell Street, on the southwest corner of Franklin Street, beginning at 4 p.m. on Sunday, February 23. Tickets are priced between $44 and $111. Tickets may be purchased online through a Tix Web page. This site includes a diagram which shows where tickets are available (which is currently the case for all four price areas).

The Bleeding Edge: 1/27/2025

This will be one of those weeks when the number of events already reported on this site will equal the number of new ones. The hyperlinks for those previously reported events are as follows:

• Wednesday, January 29: Carla Kihlstedt’s 26 Little Deaths, the first of the three PIVOT Festival performances.
• Thursday, January 30: the last of the January performances at The Lab, co-presented by Arab.AMP
• Saturday, February 1: the Tracing Paths program to be performed by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players

The remaining events all take place at venues already reported. One of those is a relatively recent addition but is likely to become a “usual suspect.” Specifics are as follows:

Friday, January 31, Medicine for Nightmares, 7 p.m.: This will be the weekly Other Dimensions in Sound concert curated and hosted by Boohaabian multi-reed player extraordinaire David Boyce. This week’s performance will be by Free Press. The 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.

Ian Carey and Kasey Knudsen at the Joe Henderson Lab of the SFJAZZ Center (screen shot from the YouTube video)

Saturday, February 1,  Bird & Beckett Books and Records, 7:30 p.m.: According to my records, the quintet led by trumpeter and composer Ian Carey gave a Jazz Chez Hanny performance this past August. Personnel have not changed since then. Carey will again be joined on the front line by two saxophonists, James Mahone and Kasey Knudsen. Rhythm will be provided on organ by Adam Schulman and by drummer Eric Garland. For those that do not already know, the venue is located at 653 Chenery Street, a short walk from the Glen Park station that serves both BART and Muni. Admission will be a cover charge of $25. Given the limited space of the venue, reservations are necessary and can be made by calling 415-586-3733. The phone will be answered during regular store hours, which are between noon and 6 p.m. on Tuesday through Sunday. This performance will also be live-streamed through hyperlinks to Facebook and YouTube on the Bird & Beckett Web page while the show is in progress.

Saturday, February 1, Blue Heron Boathouse, 7:30 p.m.: This looks like it may join the “usual suspects” list. The boathouse is located in Golden Gate Park on Stow Lake. It is best approached from Fulton Street. This week percussionist Scott Amendola will give another duo performance with keyboardist Will Blades, possibly revisiting selections from their gig at Keys Bistro this past July.

SFS: Chamber Music Framed by Two Quintets

Yesterday afternoon Davies Symphony Hall hosted the latest performance of chamber music by San Francisco Symphony (SFS) musicians. The program was framed by two quintets separated by about 30 years. It began with the quintet for oboe and strings, composed by Arnold Bax in 1922, and concluded with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Opus 10, his F-sharp minor clarinet quintet. These selections served as a framework for a duet and a trio. The duet was Camille Saint-Saëns’ Opus 124, his “Fantasie” in the key of A minor scored for flute and harp. The trio players were violinist Dan Carlson, Leonid Plashinov-Johnson on viola, and pianist Marc Shaprio, performing “Two Pieces” by Benjamin Britten. These were “juvenilia” compositions written in the composer’s teens in 1929, which were not performed until 2003. Nevertheless, they did not “make the cut” for the Complete Works release by Decca in 2013; and yesterday afternoon’s performance suggested that Decca seems to have fumbled the ball in overlooking this music.

Still, the “primary substance” for yesterday afternoon was found in the quintets that began and concluded the program. Russ de Luna was the oboist for the Bax quintet, joined by violinists Carlson and Florin Parvulescu with Davis You on cello and Plashinov-Johnson again on viola. The music began with what seemed like evocations of Claude Debussy; but, by the time it progressed to the final movements, there was no mistaking the English influences! Bax is one of those composers that never seems to get the attention he deserves. In Davies he seems to be limited to chamber music, having made his last appearance a little over two years ago.

Coleridge-Taylor’s fate has not been much better. Nevertheless, I have encountered a fair amount of his music through recordings; and, as some readers may recall, clarinetist Anthony McGill performed his clarinet quintet when he made his debut with San Francisco Performances in November of 2021. Yesterday afternoon reminded me that this music definitely deserves more attention, and clarinetist Yuhsin Galaxy Su knew how to command that attention. Strings were provided by violinists Polina Sedukh and Olivia Chen, Katarzyna Bryla on viola, and cellist Sébastien Gingras.

Harpist Katherine Siochi (from her Meet the Musicians Web page on the SFS Web site)

For the most part, these performances were consistently engaging from beginning to end. I must confess that I found the Saint-Saëns selection to be a bit long-winded. Nevertheless, the interplay of Yubeen Kim on flute and harpist Katherine Siochi was so engaging that I never really felt that they overstayed their welcome! Once again, the SFS musicians provided an engaging journey of discovery for a Sunday afternoon!

Natsuki Tamura’s Duo with Guitarist Keiji Haino

Cover of the album being discussed

Yesterday I wrote about the latest albums from Libra Records as a “husband and wife” offering of pianist Satoko Fujii and her spouse, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura. On that occasion, I focused on Fujii’s release, Altitude 1100 Meters, promising that Tamura’s release would have an article of its own. Today I shall make good on that promise. The title of Tamura’s album is What happened there?, and it is a duo performance with guitarist Keiji Haino. It is divided into four tracks, which unfold without interruption for a duration of 36 minutes.

The advance material I received describes the performers as “[t]wo of improvised music’s greatest provocateurs.” That provocation arises from the fact that much of the performance itself involves vocalization. Since my knowledge of Japanese is hopelessly weak, I have no idea whether there were any lexical roots behind that vocalization. Nevertheless, there is no end of expressiveness in how those vocal passages are delivered, which a clear intention that what is being expressed need not have much to do with reality. In my own context of Japanese performances, I am not embarrassed to suggest that those vocalizations tend to evoke the spirit of Akira Kurosawa (or, perhaps, John Belushi in one of his samurai skits) on a bad acid trip.

Mind you, there is more to the performance than an intimidating “sonic wall.” On the assumption that this is a recording of a single spontaneous improvisation, it is worth noting that both players come to an agreement that quietude would be in order around midway through the performance. However, I see this as a device through which the players maintain listener attention by keeping him/her/them guessing about what comes next on the overall journey from beginning to end.

Personally, I find this sort of listening experience to be a lot of fun. Nevertheless, I suspect that just about everyone I know (including my wife and any of the “serious musicians” with whom I converse) will probably head for the hills before the first few minutes have elapsed. Perhaps the title of Tamura’s album raises a question that defies any answer based on what his music is or how it is being performed. Have listened to the album several times, I still feel at a loss when it comes to providing a clear and comprehensible account of “what happened.” To coin a phrase from an earlier generation, I have pretty much resigned myself to “go with the flow!”

Because, like Fujii, Tamura also records on Libra Records, the best venue for purchase is the CD Store Web page on the label’s Web site.

SFP Announces New Series at Presidio Theatre

Following up on the annual PIVOT Festival, which will begin this coming Wednesday, San Francisco Performances (SFP) will launch a new series of performances on Sunday afternoons. This will be the Beischer Family Sunday Strings Series, which will take place at the Presidio Theatre Performing Arts Center at 3 p.m. The curator will be Owen Dalby, whom readers probably already known as one of the two Artistic and Executive Directors of Noe Music. The programs planned for the specific dates are as follows:

Musicians for the first Sunday Strings concert (clockwise from upper-left: Alexi Kenney, Owen Dalby, Amy Yang, and Christopher Costanza, from the Web page for that event)

February 16: The series will get off to an imaginative start with two selections likely to be unfamiliar to most listeners. The major work on the program will be a suite composed by Erich Korngold in 1930 with somewhat unconventional instrumentation: two violins, cello, and piano left hand. This was composed for the pianist Paul Wittgenstein (the older brother of philosopher Ludwig), whose right arm had to be amputated during World War I. This will be preceded by a piano quartet composed by Danny Elfman (best known for his film scores) on a joint commission by the Lied Center for Performing Arts University of Nebraska in Lincoln and the Berlin Philharmonic Piano Quartet and first performed in February of 2018. Dalby will play viola in the Elfman quartet and second violin in the Korngold suite. The other performers will be violinist Alexi Kenney, Christopher Costanza on cello, and pianist Amy Yang.

April 6: The second program will present two string quartets from opposite ends of the nineteenth century. It will begin with Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 12 quartet in E-flat major and conclude with Alexander von Zemlinsky’s Opus 4 (first) quartet in A major. Dalby will play first violin for this program. He will be joined by second violinist Geneva Lewis, Masumi Per Rostad on viola, and cellist Hannah Collins.

May 4: The series will conclude with a solo recital by cellist Costanza. The program will present two cello suites in reverse chronological order. It will begin with Benjamin Britten’s Opus 80, the second of the three suites he dedicated to cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. This will be followed by Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1012, the last of his six suites.

As some readers may recall by now, the venue is located at 99 Moraga Avenue, in the southwest corner of the Presidio. Ticket prices are $60 and $45. A Web page has also been created to purchase tickets for the entire series for $165 and $120. Single tickets may be purchased through the hyperlinks attached to the above individual dates.

A Disappointing Guitar Recital in Herbst

Guitarist Miloš (photograph by Christoph Köstlin, courtesy of SFP)

Last night saw my first visit to Herbst Theatre in the New Year. The occasion was a solo guitar recital presented jointly by San Francisco Performances and the Dynamite Guitars series of programs presented by the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts. The recitalist was Miloš Karadaglić, who performs under only his first name and (at least in last night’s program book) all in capital letters. Sadly, the quality of his performance never quite rose to the level of his imaginative presentation of self.

The title of his program was The Arts and the Hours. This was the title of interlude music for Les Boréades, the last of the five operas composed by Jean-Philippe Rameau. The program note by Scott Cmiel suggested of this music that “one could almost imagine Mahler writing in the late nineteenth century;” but he was probably looking at Rameau’s score, rather than listening to Miloš’ interpretation on guitar, which lacked any sense of dramatic flow that one tends to expect from an interlude.

Much of the program was devoted to Rameau’s contemporaries, including (in order of appearance), Sylvius Leopold Weiss, George Frideric Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Domenico Scarlatti. The Handel selection was identified only as “Menuet” but was not particularly recognizable as a minuet, let alone one by Handel; and Miloš’ approach to the chaconne movement from Bach’s BWV 1004 solo violin partita in D minor suggested that his understanding of Bach was no more secure. This concluded the first half of the program, while the entire program finished with “Amor Fati” by Mathias Duplessy, which was composed for a centenary recital for the guitar legend Andrés Segovia, based on his guitar arrangement of the BWV 1004 chaconne. Both accounts were equally disappointing, as was the Bach-inspired “Andante Religioso” movement from “La Catedral” composed by Agustín Barrios.

The one composer that “got some respect” from Miloš was Tōru Takemitsu, who had composed a set of transcriptions entitled 12 Songs for Guitar. His arrangement of Harold Arlen’s “Over the Rainbow” was the penultimate work on the program, while the encore selection was “Yesterday” composed for The Beatles by Paul McCartney and John Lennon. It is unclear how much Takemitsu knew about the guitar, but his knowledge of music was impressively diverse. Last night he emerged as the “saving grace” for an otherwise tedious encounter.

Satoko Fujii’s Suite for String Ensemble

Yesterday Libra Records released two new albums, which may be called “husband and wife” recordings. The first of these, Altitude 1100 Meters, will be the first work of written music for string ensemble by Satoko Fujii. The second, What happened there?, features her husband, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura. My original intention was to write about both of these in a single article, but the Fujii release is such a major departure from her previous albums that it deserves to be addressed strictly on its own merits. Because both of these albums are on the Libra label, the best venue for purchase is the CD Store Web page on the Web site for Libra Records.

Satoko Fujii conducting the members of her GEN ensemble (photograph by Shigeko Sekiguchi)

Altitude 1100 Meters is a suite in five movements, which Fujii wrote to celebrate her 65th birthday. It was composed for the group GEN, which is the Japanese word for string. Akira Horikoshi is the drummer, and the other performers perform on string instruments of one form or another. Fujii’s instrument is, as usual, piano; but the other four players perform with bowed instruments. These are violinists Yuriko Mukoujima and Ayaka Kato, Atsuko Hatano on viola (but doubling on electronic gear), and bassist Hiroshi Yoshino. The five movements basically account for the passing of a single day:

1. Morning Haze
2. Morning Sun
3. Early Afternoon
4. Light Rain
5. Twilight

The title of this suite was inspired by the fact that Fujii composed the work during the summer of 2023. She had moved to the highlands of Nagano with her parents to escape the city heat. She was inspired by how the air itself was different at an altitude of 1100 meters. It would be fair to say that the music itself does not specifically reflect on altitude. However, Fujii’s creativity seems to have been inspired by (in her words) “how the air made me feel.”

As might be guessed, Fujii took advantage of the violins and viola to explore glissando passages. At the other end of the spectrum, so to speak, Yoshino’s bass work often serves to provide a drone. As might be expected, Fujii brings her own intensity to her piano playing; but her equal-tempered instrument serves as a “baseline” against which she explores microtonal the intervals of the string players.

I must confess that I have not yet fathomed the logic behind her approach to microtonality, so I would like to riff a bit on my own past experiences. At the risk of sounding too simplistic, there are basically two ways in which microtones can be deployed. The simpler of these involves basically adding rhythm to glissando passages. The other is what I learned from my composition teacher, which is that an equal-tempered scale of 72 notes to the octave (dividing the semitone into six equal “subintervals”) allows a composer a more refined capacity to capture the frequencies of overtones beyond the 5:4 ratio of the major third. Since Fujii’s creativity tends to go beyond any concept of a scale, my guess is that her own work tends toward the former option!

I have come to expect that every new Fujii album will offer a journey of discovery, but Altitude 1100 Meters charts are journey more adventurous than I had anticipated!

Conductor Mark Elder Makes his SFS Debut

Conductor Mark Elder (photograph by Groves Artists, courtesy of SFS)

Mark Elder is no stranger for those that have followed the San Francisco Opera for some time. I first encountered him in the fall of 2015, when he had trouble keeping the brass section under control while conducting Richard Wagner’s score for Die Meistersinger con Nürnberg. My only other experience with his performance was in the spring of 2019, when he was the conductor for the Great Performances at the Met broadcast of Camille Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila. Sadly, this was no more satisfying than his approach to Wagner.

Last night in Davies Symphony Hall, Elder made his debut conducting the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). Having more liberty to prepare a repertoire, he put together a program that was decidedly more engaging than either of his previous operatic encounters. The first half of the program accounted for French music from the two extremes of the nineteenth century. The “central” selection was Claude Debussy’s “Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un faune,” which was composed in 1894. This was flanked on either side by overtures by Hector Berlioz. The program began with his overture to Les Franc-juges, described in the program book notes by James M. Keller as his “first operatic failure.” The first half concluded with “Le roi Lear,” a concert overture inspired by William Shakespeare’s King Lear.

Berlioz was never shy when it came to instrumentation, and Elder displayed a solid command of the scores for both of these overtures. Of particular interest was the interplay across the first and second violin sections. This was enhanced through the conductor’s decision to have the two sections face each other, rather than play side-by-side. This afforded the attentive listener better opportunities to appreciate the many details in how Berlioz managed his orchestral textures.

Those textures were equally significant during the second half of the program, most of which accounted for Richard Strauss’ Opus 30 tone poem “Also sprach Zarathustra.” Strauss was heavily interested in the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, which he encountered in the early 1890s. Also sprach Zarathustra was conceived by Nietzsche as a four-part treatise; but it unfolds as a prose narrative, whose plot line (such as it is) provided Strauss with a framework for his tone poem. Each of the tone poem’s episodes reflects on a specific segment of Nietzsche’s text. To be fair, I have to confess that, over the course of my several listening experiences, I could easily apprehend the episodic structure without finding much of a relationship to a narrative thread. Nevertheless, Elder’s conducting could not have been clearer in guiding one through those episodes, regardless of any presence or absence of a plot-line.

He then decided that Strauss’ account of heavy philosophy deserved a lighter “punch line.” As a result, last night’s program concluded with one of John Adams’ most engaging compositions, “Short Ride in a Fast Machine.” This quickly blew away any of the “scholarly cobwebs” that may have been induced by Strauss’ musical reflections on Nietzsche! This music was an SFS favorite back when Michael Tilson Thomas was Music Director. Personally, I was glad to encounter it again.

Steven Isserlis to Return for SFP “Anniversary”

Presumably, readers know by now that this is the 45th anniversary season of San Francisco Performances (SFP), and the occasion is being celebrated by an additional subscription series presenting frequent past visitors. Next month will present two of those visitors. As was announced a week ago, the first of these will be pianist Marc-André Hamelin, who has prepared an impressively diverse program for his performance on Saturday, February 8.

Steven Isserlis and Connie Shih (from the SFP event page for tickets to their recital)

Hamelin will be followed exactly a week later by the second visitor. Cellist Steven Isserlis had been scheduled to return almost exactly two years ago, but that performance had to be cancelled due to travel and visa issues related to the pandemic. This year he will be Hamelin’s “successor,” performing (as he usually does) with pianist Connie Shih as his accompanist. The program will be framed by two relatively familiar cello sonatas, the first by Ludwig van Beethoven (the second of his two Opus 5 sonatas) and the last by Edvard Grieg, his Opus 36 sonata. The first half of the program will conclude with Bohuslav Martinů’s first sonata, and the intermission will be followed by a set of three pieces for cello and piano composed by Nadia Boulanger.

This performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. on (as already mentioned above) Saturday, February 15. The venue will be Herbst Theatre, located at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. Ticket prices are $85 (premium Orchestra and front and center Dress Circle), $75 (remainder of Orchestra, all Side Boxes, and center rear Dress Circle), and $65 (remaining Dress Circle and Balcony); and they may be purchased through an SFP secure Web page. Single tickets may also be purchased by calling 415-392-2545.