Sam Weiser to Join Ian Scarfe at Century Club

Poster for the event being described, showing the two performers (screenshot from the Groupmuse Web page)

Some readers may recall that this afternoon pianist Ian Scarfe will begin the new year with his next visit to the Century Club of California. This may turn out to be a regular event, because, a little less than two weeks ago, I learned that Scarfe will return to the Century Club almost exactly one month later. However, while he will be performing with cellist James Joffe this afternoon, next month his duo partner will be violinist Sam Weiser, who, according to my records, last performed with Scarfe this past June for his Trinity Alps Chamber Music Festival, performed at Monument SF.

Next month’s program will be framed by two significant compositions in the sonata repertoire. The program will begin with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 304 two-movement violin sonata, which will be coupled with the last of Ludwig van Beethoven’s three Opus 30 violin sonatas, composed in the key of G major. The second half of the program will begin with Rebecca Clarke’s “Midsummer Moon,” followed by Amy Beach’s Opus 23 “Romance,” her first chamber music composition.

For those that do not already know, the Century Club is located at 1355 Franklin Street, between Post Street and Sutter Street. However, all arrangements must be made through a Groupmuse Web page. Ticket prices begin at $25, with $5 to hold a reservation. As of this writing, 73 of 75 spots are still available. The performance will begin at 2 p.m. on Sunday, February 22. Doors will open at 1:30 p.m. Drinks will be provided at the intermission (both with and without alcohol). However, the club itself is not wheelchair accessible.

Amy Beach on Two Pianos

Late this past August, I learned of another opportunity to listen to the music of Amy Beach. Some readers may already know, through this site, that I have had considerable interest in this composer, who played a major role in the release of the 20th-Century Women Composers album by the Trio des Alpes in April of 2015. Her “latest appearance,” so to speak, will take place this coming Friday on the album American Dream, which will be released by Alpha. As most readers will expect by now, Amazon.com has already created a Web page for taking pre-orders.

Ludmila Berlinskaya and Arthur Ancelle on the cover of their American Dream album (from the Amazon.com Web page)

Beach serves as the “keystone” in this album of works for two pianos composed during the first half of the twentieth century. The full title of her work is Suite for Two Pianos Founded upon Old Irish Melodies, and it is her Opus 104. She is preceded on the album by Dana Suesse, born about half a century after her. Suesse got her start composing hit songs for Bing Crosby but used the assets from her success to study under Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Her contribution to this album is a concero for two pianos and orchestra composed in 1943. The album then concludes with another concerto for two pianos and orchestra, this one by Victor Babin, best known for his duo-piano performances with Vitya Vronsky. The pianists on this album are Arthur Ancelle and Ludmila Berlinskaya, performing with the Orchestre Victor Hugo. Jean-François Verdier conducts the Suesse concerto, and the Babin concerto is conducted by Laurent Cómte.

The Vronsky-Babin partnership was a popular one when I was growing up in the second half of the twentieth century. I do not think I ever attended one of their performances, but I definitely knew about them through the radio. That, of course, was a time when I had not yet heard of either Suesse or Beach (and I am pretty sure that the same would be true of any of my music teachers). The fact is that the “dream” in the title of this album is the shared desire of these three composers to be taken seriously by their male colleagues. (Indeed, one might even say that the “dream” was to be recognized as colleagues at all!)

Personally, the good news in this album is the opportunity to listen to another composition in the Beach catalog. I fear that Babin was more in his element as a pianist; and I must confess that, while listening to the performance of his concerto, my only annotation was “ersatz Hindemith!” (Mind you, this could easily have been taken as praise during the middle of the last century.) Presumably, Suesse’s concerto is a reflection of Boulanger’s influence. This may have garnered her attention during her lifetime, but the interpretation of her concerto by Arthur Ancelle and Ludmila Berlinskaya never really gets the juices flowing.

Presumably, this album was conceived as a “dream” of the last century. I am glad that I have many fond memories of the second half of that century. However, those memories only include Babin as a pianist; and, at that time, I knew nothing of his efforts as a composer! If lovers of William Shakespeare will forgive me, I came away from listening to this album feeling that “American dreams” should be made of “sterner stuff!”

Ian Scarfe to Livestream Recital from Living Room

Those that follow this site regularly know that this has been a relatively busy month for Ian Scarfe. It should therefore be no surprise that his final performance this month will be livestreamed from his living room! The title of the program will be Canticle of Saint Francis: Piano Music inspired by the Natural World, and the repertoire will take the audience from morning to night. However, it will be almost the same one that he prepared for the recital that he will be giving at the Century Club on September 21, entitled Harmonies, Sonorities, and Birdsong! The “revised version will be as follows:

Peter Nicolai Arbo’s illustration of Peer Gynt for Peter Christen Asbjørnsen's book Norske Folke og Huldre-Eventyr (from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

The program will open with Edvard Grieg’s keyboard version of the “Morning,” originally composed as music for a performance of Henrik Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt. This will be followed by selected nocturnes by Frédéric Chopin and the nocturne in G-flat major composed by Ottorino Respighi. The next selection will be Franz Liszt’s S. 175/1, “St. Francis of Assisi's sermon to the birds,” the first of the two pieces in his Deux Légendes collection. The second half of the program will begin with one of the movements from Olivier Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus, the “Regard de la Vierge,” which reflects on Mary’s experience of the Annunciation. There will then be a final avian appearance in Amy Beach’s Opus 92, “A Hermit Thrush at Eve.”

This performance will take place online through Zoom. It will begin at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, September 23. Registration will be required for those wishing to attend. Zoom has created the registration Web page for this event. Donations will be welcome at the suggested amount of $20. For those that prefer to attend a “physical” performance, one will take place in the Mission at the Mission Dolores Basilica at 4 p.m. on Sunday, October 12. The Basilica is located at 3321 16th Street.

Ian Scarfe to Return to Century Club

Recently, I have been trying to do my best to keep up with concerts by pianist Ian Scarfe at Monument SF. This past June he used the venue as a platform for the San Francisco performance of music from the Trinity Alps Chamber Music Festival. Later this month, he will return to another venue where I have seen him in action, the Century Club of California.

Cellist Kendra Grittani, who will be giving her first performance with pianist Ian Scarfe this coming September 19

This will be a program entitled Harmonies, Sonorities, and Birdsong. Scarfe will be joined by cellist Kendra Grittani for a “grand finale” performance of Claude Debussy’s (only) sonata for cello and piano. The second half of the program will begin with three compositions by Debussy’s predecessor in France, Gabriel Fauré, only one of which was composed for cello and piano, the Opus 24 “Élégie.” The second half will begin with the Opus 17 “Berceuse,” which was originally composed for violin and piano, followed by the first of the three Opus 7 songs, “Après un rêve.”

The first half of the program will open with two solo piano compositions by Edvard Grieg, the keyboard version of the “Morning” music, originally composed as music for a performance of Henrik Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt. This will be followed by “Småfugl” (little bird), the fourth of the six pieces in Opus 43, the third of the books given the title Lyric Pieces. More birds will appear in the performance of Franz Liszt’s S. 175/1, “St. Francis of Assisi's sermon to the birds,” the first of the two pieces in his Deux Légendes collection. There will then be a final avian appearance in Amy Beach’s Opus 92, “A Hermit Thrush at Eve.” The first half of the program will conclude with the nocturne in G-flat major composed by Ottorino Respighi.

The Century Club is located at 1355 Franklin Street, between Post Street and Sutter Street. However, all arrangements must be made through a Groupmuse Web page. Ticket prices begin at $25, with $5 to hold a reservation. The performance will begin at 2 p.m. on Sunday, September 21; and doors will open at 1:30 p.m. Drinks will be provided (both with and without alcohol). However, the club itself is not wheelchair accessible.

Scarfe to Accompany Pole Dancing at Monument

Pole dancers to be accompanied by pianist Ian Scarfe (right) and cellist Kendra Grittani

Next month pianist Ian Scarfe, Director of the Trinity Alps Chamber Music Festival, will return to Monument SF to present a program that will definitely be “something completely different.” He will be joined by cellist Kendra Grittani, but their performance will be a far cry from the usual chamber music recital. That is because their music will serve as accompaniment for pole dancers. Monument is an ideal venue for such an event, since the space has been used by both dancers and circus artists for training and performance.

Both musicians will give solo performances in addition to their duo work. Grittani will play Jessie Montgomery’s solo cello rhapsody. Scarfe will open the program with a prelude-fugue coupling in F-sharp major by Johann Sebastian Bach. Presumably, this will be from The Well-Tempered Clavier; but the advance material for this show did not identify which book! He will also play a selection of the etudes that Philip Glass composed and published in two volumes, but the specifics have not yet been finalized. The duo performances will include Clara Schumann’s Opus 22, a set of three Romanze, as well as arrangements of works by Gabriel Fauré (his familiar Opus 50 “Pavane”) and Amy Beach (the less familiar Opus 15 “Dreaming”). As of this writing, the pole dancers have not yet been identified.

Many readers probably know by now that the Monument event space is located in SoMa at 140 9th Street. This performance will begin at 7 p.m. on Thursday, May 15. As in the past, ticketing is being managed by Groupmuse, which has created a Web page for reservations.

Broken Hearts on Valentine’s Day

The members of the Shoreline Piano Trio: Katie Youn, Mengua Lin, and Sui-mi Shin (from the Old First Concerts Web page for this performance)

Last night at the Old First Presbyterian Church, Valentine’s Day was celebrated with a program entitled Explorations of Love and Art. This was the latest Old First Concerts performance; and it was presented by the Shoreline Piano Trio, whose members are violinist Sui-mi Shin, cellist Katie Youn, and pianist Menghua Lin. This was the latest endeavor to prepare a program of chamber music whose composers were all women. With the exception of Maria Theresia von Paradis, these were, in “order of appearance,” Caroline Shaw, Jessie Montgomery, Amy Beach, Jennifer Higdon, and Clara Schumann.

This made for a promising program. Then the musicians began to play. On the positive side, each of them was well trained in negotiating intricate passages. However, if they could get the rhythms right, neither the violinist nor the cellist could adjust her respective pitches to conform to the constraints of the equal-tempered scale on the piano. The result was three seemingly skilled musicians who could not come together as a trio.

This was one of those occasions when the live stream was decidedly an advantage, meaning that my squirming and cringing would not disturb anyone in the audience.

SFIPF: A Disappointing Program of Transcriptions

Late yesterday afternoon at Old First Presbyterian Church, the San Francisco International Piano Festival (SFIPF) continued with its second program, a solo recital by Asiya Korepanova entitled Transformations. That title was selected by Korepanova because all seven of the works she played were transcriptions of her own design. This would have been an impressive undertaking had it been successful. Sadly, Korepanova’s overly aggressive keyboard technique tended to undermine any suggestion of expressiveness in either the music itself or its realization through transcription.

Asiya Korepanova playing Chopin at SFIPF (screen shot from the video of the performance)

The program itself was framed by music for cello and piano. Korepanova began by coupling Frédéric Chopin’s Opus 3, a “Polonaise brillante,” with an extended introduction, with Gabriel Fauré’s Opus 24 “Élégie.” At “the other end” the program concluded with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Opus 19 sonata for cello and piano. All three of these offerings were overwhelmed with aggressive technique, which, in the case of Opus 19, obliterated any sense of coherent phrasing.

The “meat for the sandwich” consisted of four songs, each by a different composer of a different nationality. She began with Amy Beach’s setting of Victor Hugo”s “Extase,” the second of her three Opus 21 songs. This was followed by “Liebesode,” the sixth in Alban Berg’s Seven Early Songs collection. She then moved on to César Franck’s “Le mariage des roses,” and concluded with the complete four-song cycle of Modest Mussorgsky’s “Songs and Dances of Death.” These are all selections that deserve more attention in the current vocal repertoire; but, sadly, Korepanova did little, if anything, to make a convincing case for them.

Nevertheless, her audience demanded an encore. They got “Maria,” probably the best known tune from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. She managed to inject just about every well-known Lisztian trope into her arrangement. Perhaps she was thinking of the West Side of Budapest!

Four LCCE Players Visit SF Public Library

Early yesterday evening, as part of its Workshops & Education program, the Main branch of the San Francisco Public Library hosted a visit by four of the members of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble (LCCE). They presented a one-hour program entitled Deep Ecology and Deep Listening. This began with a piano trio performance of “Tree/Peace” by Pauline Oliveros, played by violinist Anna Presler, Leighton Fong on cello, and pianist Allegra Chapman. Only one other selection involved more than one performer, Amy Beach’s “Romance,” which was scored for violin and piano.

Hildegard of Bingen with nuns, possibly leading them in chant (source unknown, public domain, from a Wikimedia Commons Web page)

Stacey Pelinka delivered two solo flute performances, which were as engaging as they were contrasting. The first of these was an instrumental account of the monodic chant of Hildegard of Bingen: “O viridissima virga, Ave.” The absence of voice detracted from the rich semantics of the text, but Pelinka’s account of the vocal line was both compelling and engaging. This contrasted sharply with her account of “Ainava ar putniem” (landscape with bird), composed by Pēteris Vasks, a bold effort to capture natural sounds through a solo instrument. This was preceded by another recent European selection, “Nocturne,” composed for solo violin by Kaija Saariaho in 1994. The solo piano offering was “Ice Calf” by Monica Chew, who is currently based in Oakland.

Whether or not this program reflected ecological connotations (or denotations) was left as an exercise for the listener. Personally, I was more inclined to reflect on the music, rather than the titles. I was particularly struck by the sensitivity of the contemporary composers’ efforts to explore diversities of sonorities, and I was impressed by how the LCCE players rose to the challenges of those sonorities. Taken as a whole, this was an hour well spent venturing into unfamiliar territories.

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.

SFP: Bryce-Davis’ San Francisco Recital Debut

Mezzo Raehann Bryce-Davis (photograph by Sam Eltosam, courtesy of San Francisco Performances)

Last night mezzo Raehann Bryce-Davis made her San Francisco recital debut in the second of the four programs presented by San Francisco Performances (SFP) in this season’s Art of Song series. She is no stranger to San Francisco, having been a 2015 Merola alumna. Her accompanist at the piano was Jeanne-Minette Cilliers. The program was one of many that had to be rescheduled due to the COVID pandemic. However, during those hard times, Bryce-Davis and Cilliers presented a Merola Opera Virtual Recital Series performance.

The title of last night’s program was In Honor of Women. Almost all of the selections were composed during the current or preceding century. However, there was one nineteenth-century selection in which the woman being honored was the amateur poet Mathilde Wesendonck. Five of her texts were set by Richard Wagner as a collection entitled Wesendonck Lieder.

This is Wagner at his most intimate, and two of the songs were identified as “studies” for his work on the opera Tristan und Isolde. I have been fortunate enough to listen to performances of the collection on several occasions, and I was delighted with last night’s opportunity for another encounter. As one might guess, there is an intense undercurrent of passion in Wagner’s settings; and both Bryce-Davis and Cilliers could not have done a better job in their expression of those passions.

I was just as delighted with my latest encounters with three significant women from the twentieth century. The program began with Amy Beach’s Opus 44 setting of three poems by Robert Browning. It has been a long time since I last encountered what used to be a familiar couplet: “God’s in his heaven,/All’s right with the world.” It must have been familiar to Beach, too; but she knew just how to give it the right twist. The second half of the program presented songs by Margaret Bonds (“Birth”) and Florence Price (“The Crescent Moon”), both of which were “first encounters” for me but definitely welcome.

The issue of race surfaced in Melissa Dunphy’s “Come, My Tan-Faced Children.” Far more politicized, however, were the three selections of settings by Maria Thompson Corley: “I Am Not an Angry Black Women,” “The Beauty in My Blackness,” and “Black Riders’ Freedom Song.” The program closed out with three of the songs in Fi Mi Love Have Lion Heart, settings of Jamaican folk songs by Peter Ashbourne. The encore selection was Jacqueline Hairston’s arrangement of “Don’t Feel No Ways Tired.”

Taken as a whole, this was a throughly engaging evening of discoveries interleaved with the familiar. Bryce-Davis’ vocal skills are solid, and she couples them with just their right personality traits to engage her audience. There is an intimacy in solo vocal music that sets the genre apart from instrumental performances. Last night, however, that intimacy was evident not only in Bryce-Davis’ delivery but also in the chemistry she shared with Cilliers. Like Oliver Twist, I would have liked to approach them at the end of the evening and ask for more!

Sarah Cahill Launches 2024 at Old First Concerts

This afternoon I live-streamed the first performance of the new year to be presented by Old First Concerts. This was a solo piano recital by Sarah Cahill, whom I had not heard since her Flower Piano performance this past September. I can always count on Cahill to expand the boundaries of my listening experiences, and this afternoon was no exception.

Her entire program was framed by two compositions by Ann Southam, whose music she had previously performed at the Chapel of the Chimes in June of 2022. The program began with the first piece in Southam’s first Rivers Series collection, composed in 1979, and concluded with another “river-oriented” work, “Commotion Creek,” composed in 2007. As might be expected, both of these compositions evoked their subject matter through rhythmic textures, which Cahill realized with eyebrow-raising precision.

The most recent work on the program began the second half. This was Evan Ziporyn’s “You Are Getting Sleepy.” This was another richly textured composition, and I must confess that trying to follow the flow of those textures was probably the most challenging undertaking of the afternoon. Ziporyn’s offering complemented the conclusion of the first half of the program, which was Terry Riley’s “The Walrus in Memoriam.” This was a tongue-in-cheek homage to one of the weirder Beatles tunes (“I Am the Walrus”); but any quotations were deftly camouflaged by Riley’s rich counterpoint.

Excerpt from Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s thickly textured Forest Scenes (from IMSLP, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 License)

The remainder of the program reflected on the early twentieth century, presenting three composers whose works had gone unrecognized for the better part of my life. The earliest of these was a five-movement suite by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor entitled Forest Scenes. Through thickly-textured keyboard writing, the music unfolds a narrative of passion between a “lone forest maiden” and a “phantom lover,” who, in the final scene, proudly “journey towards the great city.” This was followed by Amy Beach’s “A Hermit Thrush at Eve,” the first of her two Opus 92 compositions. (The title of the second is “A Hermit Thrush at Morn.”) Beach knew how to set the mood for this work without trying to emphasize any bird calls.

The last of the offerings from this period in music history consisted of three of Ruth Crawford’s piano preludes, which she composed between 1925 and 1928. Even before she met and married Charles Seeger, Crawford had established qualities as a composer; and I realized, with more than a little regret, that I have not had an opportunity to write about her since I listened to Cahill and violinist Kate Stenberg perform the duo sonata she had composed in 1926. The preludes that Cahill selected left me hoping that, on some occasion in the not-too-distant future, I shall have the opportunities to listen to all nine of the preludes played as a cycle.

Meanwhile, as always, I shall find myself waiting to see what Cahill will select for her next recital.

SFP: Art of Song to Continue with Bryce-Davis

Readers probably know by now that, following a quiet December, San Francisco Performances will greet the New Year with a busy schedule of concerts. Having already accounted for Jonathan Biss’ first Echoes of Schubert recital and the entire PIVOT Series, it is now time to wrap up the month of January with one final offering. That event will be the second of the four programs presented in the Art of Song series.

Mezzo Raehann Bryce-Davis (photograph by Sam Eltosam, courtesy of San Francisco Performances)

That program will be a recital by 2015 Merola alumna mezzo Raehann Bryce-Davis. [updated 12/14, 4:10 p.m.: Her accompanist will be Jeanne-Minette Cilliers. (Some readers may recall that Cilliers was her accompanist when she presented a Merola Opera Program Virtual Recital Series program during the pandemic.)]

The most “traditional” selection on the program will be the collection of five songs by Richard Wagner that are commonly known as the Wesendonck Lieder. This selection will be complemented by songs from the early twentieth century by female composers. The program will begin with Amy Beach’s Opus 44 Three Browning Songs; and the other composers will be Margaret Bonds (“Birth”) and Florence Price (“The Crescent Moon”). There will also be works by two living female composers, Melissa Dunphy (“Come, My Tan Faced Children”) and Maria Thompson Corley (“The Beauty in My Blackness” and “I’m Not an Angry Black Woman”). The program will conclude with three of the movements of the cycle Fi Mi Love Have Lion Heart, composed by Peter Ashbourne and based on Jamaican folk songs.

This performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, January 27. The venue will be Herbst Theatre, on the ground floor of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. Tickets are being sold for $65 for premium seating in the Orchestra, the Side Boxes, and the front and center of the Dress Circle, $55 for the center rear of the Dress Circle and the remainder of the Orchestra, and $45 for the remainder of the Dress Circle and the Balcony. They may be purchased through an SFP secure Web page or by calling 415-392-2545.

Old First Concerts: January, 2024

As of this writing, Old First Concerts has prepared only two programs for the month of January. Both of them will be on Sunday afternoons but at different times.  These offerings will continue to be “hybrid,” allowing both live streaming and seating in the Old First Church at 1751 Sacramento Street on the southeast corner of Van Ness Avenue. All tickets will still be sold for $25 (no reduced rate for seniors or students). Hyperlinks to the event pages (which include hyperlinks for streaming) will be attached to the date and time of the performances as follows:

Sunday, January 7, 2 p.m.: The 2024 season will begin with a solo piano recital by Sarah Cahill. The program does not have a title; but, if it did, it would be something like “Something Old, Something (relatively) Recent!” The first three selections will all date from the first quarter of the twentieth century. The composers will be Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (his Opus 66 Forest Scenes), Amy Beach (the first of her Opus 92 “Hermit Thrush” compositions), and Ruth Crawford Seeger (four of the nine preludes she composed between 1924 and 1928). The more recent selections will be two works by Ann Southam (the opening selection in her Rivers Series and “Commotion Creek”), along with compositions by Terry Riley (“The Walrus in Memoriam”) and Evan Ziporyn (“You Are Getting Sleepy”). Ziporyn is expected to attend this recital.

Sunday, January 28, 4 p.m.: This will be the first visit by the Ives Collective since this past September. They are a quartet whose members are Kay Stern (violin), Susan Freier (violin and viola), Stephen Harrison (cello), and Elizabeth Schumann (piano). The program will begin and end with compositions by Mélanie Bonis, who just missed studying at the Paris Conservatoire under Gabriel Fauré. The opening selection will be the piano trio that she entitled “Matin et Soir” (morning and evening); and the program will conclude with her Opus 69, her first piano quartet composed in the key of B-flat major. Between these “bookends” Stern, Freier, and Harrison will play the string trio that Ethel Smyth composed in 1887.

Chamber Music Tuesday Begins New Season

Last night in the Barbro Osher Recital Hall, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) presented the first installment of Chamber Music Tuesday for the new academic year. As is often (always?) the case, the program included a guest artist, pianist Inon Barnatan. His performance was part of a week-long residence, which also included presiding over a master class for piano students.

Violinist Shintaro Taneda, pianist Inon Barnatan, and cellist Ayoun Alexandra Kim at the beginning of last night’s first Chamber Music Tuesday program of the season (screen shot from the live video stream)

Barnatan joined SFCM students in the opening and concluding selections on the program. The first was the first of Ludwig van Beethoven’s three Opus 1 piano trios, for which Barnatan was joined by Shintaro Taneda on violin and Ayoun Alexandra Kim on cello. The second half of the program was devoted entirely to Amy Beach’s Opus 67 piano quintet. The string quartet for this performance consisted of violinists Daniel Dastoor and Yip Wai Chow, violist Isabel Tannenbaum, and cellist Constantine Janello. Following the trio, Barnatan performed three solo selections: Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 14 Rondo capriccioso in E major, Philip Glass’ seventeenth étude, and the fourth piece in the six Moments musicaux, Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Opus 16.

The Beethoven trio was the most satisfying event on the program. Most important was the recognition by the players that, early in his career, Beethoven could have an engaging sense of humor, which could often turn positively raucous. That trait surfaces in all four movements of the trio, and Barnatan was not shy in engaging his body language to capture every one of the composer’s humorous gestures. Fortunately, his enthusiasm was contagious, encouraging both of the SFCM students to make it clear that they were having fun with their performance.

The Beach quintet was far more serious (F-sharp minor). My first encounter with this composition took place in my early days of covering performances at SFCM; and I have always been impressed with the expressiveness of score, whose intensity tended to suggest an interest in Gustav Mahler. Sadly, that intensity was lacking last night. It was as if the many dark clouds that Beach had conceived were lost in a thick fog. Beach was living in Alamo Square when this quintet was first performed in San Francisco, but last night did little to reflect on either her past “local presence” or the many imaginative turns in her quintet.

Barnatan’s solo work provided a useful scope of his repertoire interests. For the most part, his emphasis was on dexterity. Nevertheless, he made it clear that dexterity could present itself in a wide variety of different colors, and the juxtaposition of three decidedly different periods in music history provided just the right scope to present all of that variety. Nevertheless, over the course of the entire program, it was definitely Beethoven that stole the show.

Eric Ferring: Art Song with Piano and Strings

This Friday Delos will release the debut album of tenor Eric Ferring, entitled We have tomorrow. This departs from the usual vocal releases, because accompaniment is provided by not only pianist Madeline Slettedahl but also the member of the Paris-based Quatuor Agate. The members of this string quartet are violinists Adrien Jurkovic and Thomas Descamps, violist Raphaël Pagnon, and cellist Iachemet. As of this writing, Amazon.com has created a Web page for pre-ordering the album’s 26 tracks; but that page does not support pre-ordering the physical CD.

Recording session for La Bonne Chanson (screen shot from a YouTube video created by Delos Music)

The “program” of the album is an impressive one. The “familiar faces” on the album are American (Samuel Barber), German (Johannes Brahms), and French (Gabriel Fauré). The Brahms selection is the relatively familiar Opus 91, consisting of only two songs but score for accompaniment by both viola and piano. Less familiar may be Fauré’s Opus 61, the cycle of nine mélodies entitled La Bonne Chanson, which concludes the album. (The title refers to a set nine poems by Paul Verlaine given the same name.) At the “opposite end,” so to speak, the album begins with Mélodies passagères, Samuel Barber’s setting of five poems by Rainer Maria Rilke.

The one composition that requires all four members of Quatuor Agate is entitled, simply enough, Triptych for High Voice and String Quartet, composed by Arthur Shepherd. The texts are taken from Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali, but they are sung in English. I suspect that I am not the only one for which this composition provided a “first contact” listening experience. It was first published in 1927, about two decades after Arnold Schoenberg had added a soprano to his second string quartet. It goes without saying that there is no confusing Shepherd’s music with Schoenberg’s!

In the context of a rising interest in female composers, the remaining two composers on We have tomorrow are both American women. The Barber cycle is followed by two songs by Florence Price, “Hold Fast to Dreams” and (the title track) “We have tomorrow.” The account of Amy Beach is both longer and more extensive. It consists of two early works, the Opus 19 “Ecstasy” and the Opus 21 “Chanson d’amour.” The “set” then concludes with the two songs in her Opus 100, “A mirage” and “Stella viotoris.”

According to the background material I have received, Ferring has appeared at Santa Fe Opera but has not yet made it to the West Coast. Given his imaginative approach to repertoire, I suspect that I would not be the only one to welcome his coming here to give a recital in Herbst Theatre! Meanwhile, I shall probably make it a point to revisit this album sooner rather than later!

Galvin Recital: Two Violin Sonatas; Two Centuries

Patrick Galvin and Connor Buckley taking a bow after their performance of Prokofiev’s Opus 80 sonata (screen shot from last night’s video stream)

Last night violinist Patrick Galvin returned to Old First Presbyterian Church to follow up on his last Old First Concerts (O1C) recital given about a year ago. He organized his program around two sonatas, each from a different century. The first half of the program was dominated almost entirely by Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 80 (first) sonata in F minor. This was followed, after the intermission, by Robert Schumann’s Opus 105 (first) sonata in A minor. Galvin’s accompanist at the piano was Connor Buckley.

Neither of these sonatas receives the attention it deserves. Prokofiev spent about eight years working on Opus 80; and, by the time he had finished, he had already completed his Opus 94a (second) violin sonata in D major, which was basically a rearrangement of his Opus 94 flute sonata (also in D major), in 1943, while Opus 80 was not completed until 1946. Taken together, the two sonatas provide a study in sharp contrasts: Opus 94a was all bright sunshine, while Opus 80 presented Prokofiev at his darkest. Both Galvin and Buckley clearly appreciated that dark rhetoric, making for one of the more harrowing listening experiences to be encountered at an O1C performance.

Schumann’s sonata, like Prokofiev’s, was composed relatively late in his life. It was completed in 1851, not long before Johannes Brahms, then twenty years old, would join his household. Schumann was not particularly satisfied with Opus 105 and completed his second sonata, Opus 121 in D minor, only a few months later. Sadly, neither of these sonatas receives very much attention on the recital circuit. Nevertheless, both Galvin and Buckley gave a sufficiently engaging account of Opus 105 to suggest that Schumann’s own opinion of the music may not have been justified.

These two sonatas were interleaved with four shorter pieces, two of which were composed for solo violin. The Prokofiev sonata was preceded by Grażyna Bacewicz’ “Polish Caprice,” while the Schumann sonata was follows by the “Tangy” movement from Korine Fujiwara’s Six Tasty Caprices. As might be guessed, the “tangy” taste was presented in the form of a tango. The program then concluded with duo performances of Amy Beach’s Opus 23 “Romance” and the “Romanza andaluza” by Pablo de Sarasate, the third of eight pieces he collected under the title Spanish Dances.

Taken as a whole, this was a straightforward bread-and-butter performance. Both musicians were attentive to the many details in the selections they performed. However, they tended to moderate their overall approach to expressiveness. To be fair, however, each of the compositions performed had enough expressiveness to speak for itself!

Centuries of Sound to Return to Century Club

Centuries of Sound is a concert series affiliated with the Trinity Alps Chamber Music Festival and the visits made by Festival musicians to San Francisco. These events take place in the ballroom of the historic Century Club of California, which has just the right acoustics and intimate setting for chamber music performances. To my regret, I seem to have lost touch with these regular visits; but, thanks to Groupmuse, I can put out the word for when the next offering will take place.

Two Roads Trio members Karl Knapp, Jamie Rose Guarrine, and Ian Scarfe on the poster for the program being discussed (from a Groupmuse event page)

The performers for this offering call themselves the Two Roads Trio. The group is led by pianist Ian Scarfe, who is the Founder and Director of the Trinity Alps Festival. The other members are soprano Jamie Rose Guarrine and cellist Karl Knapp. The vocal selections will focus on settings of the poetry of Emily Dickinson.

Those texts will form the basis for a cycle of commissioned songs entitled To Keep the Dark Away and composed by Scott Gendel. This will be the opening selection, and the program will conclude with “The Angel’s Serenade” by Gaetano Braga. Between these two “bookends,” there will be three more familiar composers, Leonard Bernstein (“Dream With Me”), Amy Beach (“Chanson d’Amour”), and Franz Schubert (D. 965, “Der hirt auf dem Felsen,” which translates as “the shepherd on the rock” and was composed for trio performance).

The Century Club is located at 1355 Franklin Street, between Post Street and Sutter Street. The performance will begin at 2 PM on Sunday, April 23. Payment is being managed by an RSVP hyperlink on the Eventbrite Web page created for this recital. A seat may be reserved for $5. For those that would prefer to pay at the door, admission will be $20. Groupmuse will provide free drinks. Note that masks will not be required, nor proof of either COVID vaccination or COVID testing. It goes without saying, however, that anyone feeling sick should stay at home.

PIVOT Festival Gets Under Way with Catalyst

Portrait of the Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1781 painting by Alexandre-Auguste Robineau, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Last night in Herbst Theater the PIVOT Festival, presented by San Francisco Performances and curated by the Catalyst Quartet, got under way. The theme of the festival is a continuation of the Uncovered series, which Catalyst curated last season. The members of the quartet are violinists Karla Donehew Perez and Abi Fayette (alternating in leading from first chair), violist Paul Laraia, and cellist Karlos Rodriguez. As was the case in last season’s Uncovered series, the Festival will also feature guest artists.

The first of those guest artists, pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, appeared in last night’s opening Festival offering. The program concluded with a performance of Amy Beach’s Opus 67 piano quintet in F-sharp minor, a composition I first got to know through performances at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM). Beach completed her quintet in 1908, and it was given its first performance in Boston on February 20 of that year. However, I seem to recall an exhibit at the San Francisco Public Library, which documented her performance of the quintet here in San Francisco at a time when she was living off Alamo Square. Perez took first chair for last night’s performance; and I was pleasantly reminded of the quintet’s vast spectrum of dispositions, which I had first encountered at SFCM.

McDermott also appeared at the end of the first half of the program. She joined with Fayette and Rodriguez in a performance of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s piano trio in E minor. Coleridge-Taylor was featured in the first volume of Catalyst’s UNCOVERED series on Azica Records, released almost exactly two years ago. That album included his Opus 1, a piano quintet in G minor (with Steward Goodyear joining the Catalyst musicians). The trio predates that quintet and is one of Coleridge-Taylor’s earliest compositions. It consists of three short movements, resulting in less than ten minutes of music. One may say that the composer’s juices were just beginning to flow; but last night’s performance made it clear that this was no mere beginner’s effort.

The “spinal cord” for the entire Festival will be the six quartetto concertans composed by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges. These were given the title “Au gout du jour” (in contemporary taste). The first two began last night’s program.

Rodriguez suggested that Saint-George was the second composer of string quartets (after Joseph Haydn). Saint-George was definitely inspired by Haydn, but it would probably be fairer to say that he was the first composer whose quartets were first published in France. However, Saint-George’s quartets are all structured as two contrasting movements, rather than following Haydn’s four-movement architecture. Last night’s quartets were in the keys of B-flat major and G minor, respectively; and, while the selections were brief, they were thoroughly engaging to the attentive listener.

The second half of the program included a second trio offering, composed by Rebecca Clarke. Since Clarke was a violist, the instrumentation was for violin, viola, and piano, rather than that of the Coleridge-Taylor trio. Perez was the violinist for Clarke’s relatively short (but highly expressive) “Dumka.” This is a form of contrasting episodes that is usually associated with Antonín Dvořák, and Clarke was clearly inspired by that Czech composer.

Clarke’s selection was preceded by “Quarteto virreinal” (colonial quartet) by the Mexican composer Miguel Bernal Jimenez, who died of a heart attack at the age of 46 in 1956. Perez introduced this piece, observing that she associated some of the thematic material with her childhood. Where my own listening experiences are concerned, this was definitely the major “journey of discovery” over the course of the entire program. Hopefully, Jimenez will find his way into the UNCOVERED recording series. I could certainly do with further listening experiences!

Ian Scarfe to Present Groupmuse of Four Pianists

Poster design showing Monica Chew, Britton Day, Ian Scarfe, and Elektra Schmidt (clockwise from upper left), the four pianists to perform at The Century Club of California this coming Sunday (from the groupmuse event page)

Ian Scarfe, founder and Director of the Trinity Alps Chamber Music Festival, is currently in San Francisco; and he has made arrangements for a groupmuse concert, which will take place this Sunday afternoon. He has recruited three other pianists to join him for this event: Elektra Schmidt, Monica Chew, and Britton Day. The program will present both solo and four-hand performances, all utilizing the Steinway D Concert Grand at The Century Club of California.

Chew will give a solo performance of her recently completed composition “Ice Calf.” The other solo performances will present Frédéric Chopin’s Opus 52, the last of his four “Ballade” compositions, Maurice Ravel’s sonatine, and Amy Beach’s  Opus 92, “Hermit Thrush at Eve, at Morn.” The program will conclude with two four-hand selections, the suite of six pieces by Claude Debussy entitled Épigraphes antiques and Maurice Ravel’s four-movement “Rapsodie espagnole.” Some readers may recall that Scarfe and Schmidt performed the Ravel selection at Flower Piano this past Saturday.

The Century Club is located at 1355 Franklin Street, between Post Street and Sutter Street. The performance will begin at 2 p.m. this Sunday, September 25. Admission will be by the suggested contribution of $25, but those with limited funds can reserve a place for $5. The RSVP must be processed through the Groupmuse event page for this recital. Further details, including COVID-19 protocols, have been posted on that Web page.

CMSSF to Return to Candlelight Concert Series

This morning I received the good news that two of my favorite sources for listening have resumed their activity. The first of these was actually a belated discovery, which is that the Candlelight Concert Series at The Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin resumed performances for the 2021–2022 season this past September! The second, which is more timely, is that the Chamber Music Society of San Francisco (CMSSF) will make its third Candlelight appearance this coming Sunday.

CMSSF musicians Natasha Makhijani, Jory Fankuchen, Clio Tilton, and Samsun van Loon (from the Candlelight Concert Series event page)

CMSSF is a string quartet that still consists of its founding members, violinists Natasha Makhijani and Jory Fankuchen, violist Clio Tilton, and cellist Samsun van Loon. Program details have not yet been announced. However, the current plan is that the concert will be framed by two American composers, Amy Beach and William Grant Still. The Beach selection will be followed by music by Johannes Brahms, whose influence on Beach is particularly noticeable in her Opus 67 piano quintet in F-sharp minor. Still’s primary influence, on the other hand, was the Harlem Renaissance.

This program will begin 5 p.m. this coming Sunday, February 13. The church is located in Cow Hollow at 2325 Union Street. Thanks to the generosity of many donors, all of the concerts in this series are offered without charge. Nevertheless, there will be a request for free-will donations, all of which, regardless of size, are gladly received and are tax-deductible. As is usually the case currently, all concert attendees will be required to show proof of a COVID-19 booster shot; and masks must be worn while inside the church.