Yo-Yo Ma’s One-Night-Only Visit to Davies

Yo-Yo Ma with his cello (from the event page for last night’s performance)

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma made his debut with the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) in March of 1970 and has been making return visits to Davies Symphony Hall since then. In addition to performing in a symphonic setting, he has also given chamber music recitals in in Davies, the most recent of which was in April of 2024, when he was accompanied at the piano by Kathryn Stott. Last night he returned to Davies for a one-night-only performance with SFS under the baton of James Gaffigan.

The concerto selection was Edward Elgar’s Opus 85, his only cello concerto, composed in the key of E minor. Ma announced from the stage that the performance would be in memory of Michael Tilson Thomas. Indeed, Ma’s relationship with SFS has been an adventurous one. Nevertheless, what struck me the most about last night’s performance was his “first among equals” relationship with the SFS ensemble. Concertos are often treated as “ego trips;” but it was clear from the opening measures that being in a group mattered as much to the soloist as it did to the SFS players. From my vantage point, the result felt like the continuation of a decades-long partnership that has sustained as a friendship.

Perhaps because he did not want to “upstage” the ensemble, Ma concluded the evening with only one encore. This was Pablo Casals’ arrangement for solo cello of the Catalan Christmas song “El cant dels ocells” (the song of the birds). On the “other side” of the program, Gaffigan began by leading SFS in a performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s final (“Jupiter”) symphony, K. 551 in C major. He was patient with the applause after each movement by an audience not familiar with concert etiquette. Interruptions aside, his account of the symphony could not have been better managed, leading up to the “all together now” plethora of themes and sonorities that populate the last of the four movements.

Last night’s evening may have been shorter than usual, but it could not have been sweeter!

May 30: Two Overlapping (contrasting) Events

As of this writing, the last Saturday of this month, May 30, will see (at least) two overlapping performances, both beginning at 7:30 p.m. My guess is that making a choice will not be too difficult for many readers, since the performing organizations are decidedly different. One of these will be the final program in the current season of the San Francisco Philharmonic, while the other will be the penultimate performance by the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus (SFGMC). Specifics are as follows:

Anne Richardson and Jessica Bejarano on the poster design for the next San Francisco Philharmonic concert

The guest soloist for the San Francisco Philharmonic will be cellist Anne Richardson, Associate Principal Cello of the San Francisco Symphony. Music Director Jessica Bejarano will lead the performance of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 33, “Variations on a Rococo Theme.” This will be followed by an equally imaginative approach to variations by Edward Elgar. Each of the movements in his “Enigma Variations” is a character sketch of one of the composer’s acquaintances. Taken as a whole, the duration of the program will be approximately 90 minutes. The performance will take place in Herbst Theatre, which is located in the Veterans Building on the southwest corner of Van Ness Avenue and McAllister Street. All tickets are being sold for $30 and may be purchased through a City Box Office Web page.

The full title of the SFGMC program is Shine On: An Ensemble Showcase. As many readers probably know, there are smaller ensembles embedded in the full chorus. Two of them will be featured on the program: HomoPhonics and The Lollipop Guild. There will also be guest performers visiting from both the north and the south. Cascade is one of the smaller groups in the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus, while the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles will send its own embedded Aftershock group. The venue will be the Chan National Queer Arts Center, which is located in the Mission at 170 Valencia Street. Premium seating is now sold out, but general admission tickets are still available for $35. SFGMC has created its own Web page for purchasing these tickets.

SFP’s 2026 Subscriber Gift Concert

Mezzo Nikola Printz (photograph by Destiny Grace, courtesy of SFP)

Last night in Herbst Theatre, San Francisco Performances (SFP) presented its annual Gift Concert. For those that do not already know, the “gift” is that subscribers and donors are entitled to tickets at no charge. The performers were the Catalyst Quartet, whose violinists, Karla Donehew Perez and Abi Fayette, alternate in occupying first chair. The other members of the quartet are Paul Laraia on viola and cellist Karlos Rodriguez. The ensemble has been visiting SFP since March of 2018, and last night was their ninth appearance. In the second half of the program, they were joined by mezzo Nikola Printz, along with Terrence Wilson on piano.

The program began with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Opus 5, a set of five “Fantasiestücke” (fantasy pieces) composed for string quartet. Born in London, he entered the Royal College of Music at the early age of fifteen, studying under Charles Villiers Stanford. Early in his career he attracted the support of Edward Elgar, who commissioned a composition for the Three Choirs Festival. His other major support came from Antonín Dvořák. Nevertheless, each of the five Opus 5 pieces had its own characteristic voice for an engaging journey of discovery. The first half of the program concluded with Libby Larsen’s “Sorrow Song and Jubilee,” a reflection on the spiritual “Swing Low Sweet Chariot.”

The second half of the program began with Noah Luna’s arrangement of “Going Home,” a spiritual-like song that appropriated the principal theme from the second (Largo) movement of Antonín Dvořák’s ninth symphony, given the title “From the New World.” Printz was the vocalist, who then went on to sing the five vocal settings in Edward Elgar’s Opus 37 Sea Pictures in an arrangement by Donald Fraser. Printz’ delivery could not have been more engaging, particularly in the diversity of dispositions in the Elgar cycle.

While only four works were performed, last night was a “gift” of rich diversity, the perfect way for SFP to thank its generous supporters.

SFP: Plans for 2026 Gift Concert

Yesterday afternoon San Francisco Performances (SFP) announced its annual Gift Concert. The “gift” is that subscribers and donors are entitled to tickets at no charge. However, one week from tomorrow, March 19, seating for the general public in the Orchestra and Boxes will be available at the price of $55. As usual, tickets may be purchased online through an SFP Web page or by calling 415-392-2545. Remaining tickets will be available at the door with a 50% discount for students and 20% off for seniors.

Catalyst Quartet members Karlos Rodriguez, Paul Laraia, Abi Fayette, and Karla Donehew Perez (photograph by Ricardo Quiñones, courtesy of SFP)

This year the program will present both vocal and chamber music. The vocalist will be mezzo Nikola Printz, who is no stranger to San Francisco. This past October she was one of the participants in Death by Aria, the Halloween-themed concert produced by pianist Ronny Michael Greenberg. The instrumentalists for the concert will be pianist Terrence Wilson and the members of the Catalyst Quartet: violinists Abi Fayette and Karla Donehew Perez, Paul Laraia on viola, and cellist Karlos Rodriguez.

Catalyst will begin the program with a performance of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Opus 5, given the title Fantasiestücke. Printz will then sing “Sorrow Song and Jubilee” by Libby Larsen. This will be followed by Noah Luna’s arrangement of “Goin’ Home,” a spiritual-like song using the principal theme from the Largo movement of Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 95 (ninth) symphony in E minor. Printz will conclude the program with a performance of Edward Elgar’s Opus 37, his Sea Pictures song cycle in an arrangement by Donald Fraser.

This concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 7. It will take place in Herbst Theatre, whose entrance is on the ground floor of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, located on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. This venue is excellent for public transportation, since that corner has Muni bus stops for both north-south and east-west travel.

NCCO: The Coming of the Winter Season

SFGC in 2023 (photograph by Carlin Ma)

This afternoon in St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, the New Century Chamber Orchestra presented its latest program, entitled In Winter’s Glow. Music Director Daniel Hope led as Concertmaster, sharing the program with the San Francisco Girls Chorus (SFGC) prepared by Artistic Director Valérie Sainte-Agathe. In fact, compositions by William Billings, Benjamin Britten, and Ola Gjeilo, along with arrangements of “Deck the Halls” and “Silent Night” in arrangements by John Rutter, were performed only by SFGC.

Hope led performances of two multi-movement compositions. The first of these was a concerto for four violins in B minor, the tenth selection in the twelve concertos that Antonio Vivaldi collected in his Opus 3, given the title L'estro armonico (the harmonic inspiration). The other instrumental selection was Edward Elgar’s three-movement “Serenade for Strings.” The program concluded with a joint presentation of Nico Muhly’s “Whispered and Revealed.” There were also two joint presentations dedicated explicitly to the Christmas holiday. The first of these was two of the movements from Gordon Getty’s Four Christmas Carols followed by “I Wonder as I Wander” and “Christmas Time of Year” from Jake Heggie’s On the Road to Christmas. The encore selection was “Balulalow,” a Scottish cradle song, often associated with the Nativity.

This was an undertaking as diverse as it was generous. Nevertheless, it all fit neatly into a 90-minute program; and, at least from my vantage point, the audience seemed fixated to the performance from start to finish. Ironically, the only problems with diction seemed to arise in Rutter’s arrangements; but all the other SFGC performances were as clear as crystal.

I suspect that one of the reasons why this program was, for the most part, consistently engaging is that Hope and Sainte-Agathe had no trouble in working with each other. Each selection was greeted with sincere applause, but it was the overall journey through an impressive variety of dispositions that sustained attention. Hope and Sainte-Agathe may have alternated in leadership, but it was clear that they shared the vision of that overall journey. Listening to the final round of applause, it was clear that the audience could not have been more satisfied with that vision.

NCCO: A Sacred and Secular December

Artistic Director Valérie Sainte-Agathe conducting the San Francisco Girls Chorus

Next month the New Century Chamber Orchestra (NCCO), with Music Director Daniel Hope as Concertmaster, will join forces with the San Francisco Girls Chorus to present a program entitled In Winter’s Glow. When I wrote about this program in the season announcement, I called it a “holiday program;” but it would be more accurate to say that the selections will balance both the sacred and the secular. The former will consist of a set of traditional carols arranged by John Rutter, followed by William Billings’ choral composition “Bethlehem” and Benjamin Britten’s “A Wealden Trio: Christmas Song of the Women.” There will also be selections from Jake Heggie’s On the Road to Christmas.

The first half of the program will be devoted to three selections for string ensembles. These will be performed in reverse chronological order, beginning with Rutter’s 1973 Suite for Strings. This will be followed by Edward Elgar’s Opus 20, given the title “Serenade for String Orchestra.” Turning back the clock even further will be Antonio Vivaldi’s RV 580 concerto in B minor for four solo violins. Things will then turn back to the present with performance of “Northern Lights” by Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo. The other secular offerings will be David Conte’s Two Winter Scenes and “Whispered and Revealed” by Nico Muhly.

The San Francisco performance of this program will take place on Saturday, December 13, beginning at 2 p.m. The venue will be St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, which is located on Cathedral Hill at 1111 O’Farrell Street, just west of the intersection with Franklin. Tickets may be purchased through a City Box Office Web page with prices between $35 and $80.

Pianist Conrad Tao Returns to Davies

Last night conductor Nicholas Collon made his debut conducting the San Francisco Symphony, but San Francisco also saw the return of one of the more interesting pianists I have encountered over the course of my writing. That pianist is Conrad Tao, who made his SFS debut in February of 2008. I first came to know him through San Francisco Performances, both with the JACK Quartet and as part of the Junction Trio, performing with violinist Stefan Jackiw and cellist Jay Campbell. I also began following his recordings in February of 2012, although the most recent album I covered was American Rage, which dates back about five years.  Those past encounters all involved “bleeding edge” repertoire; so last night I was more than a little surprised that Tao’s concerto selection was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 23 (first) piano concerto in B-flat minor (one of those warhorses that consistently “leads the pack”).

Personally, I was delighted to see that Tao was as comfortable playing Tchaikovsky as he has been with composers such as Frederic Rzewski. His chemistry with Collon could not have been better, and Associate Principal Anne Richardson’s cello solo in the Andantino semplice movement added to the freshness of the overall listening experience. Most important was that all of the performing musicians knew exactly how to capture the full richness of Tchaikovsky’s rhetoric without ever going over the top into bombast. This made for a refreshing listening experience, rather than a here-we-go-agin reaction.

As expected, Tao followed up on his concerto performance with an encore. This one was just as familiar as the concerto (if not more so). He played Harold Arlen’s “Over the Rainbow.” Familiar as this was, his approach could not have been more virtuosic. He took his interpretation from a 1958 recording made by Art Tatum. I often wonder whether or not, during his time in Los Angeles, Tatum had any encounters with Rachmaninoff; but I suspect that the latter tended to keep his distance from the jazz world! Nevertheless, Tatum’s capacity for embellishment was just as rich, and Tao delivered a solid account of that richness in every phrase of the Arlen tune.

Photograph of Edward Elgar, probably taken not long after the completion of “Enigma Variations” (unknown photographer, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

The second half of the program, usually allotted to a symphony, was devoted entirely to Edward Elgar’’s Opus 36, best known under the title “Enigma Variations.” Elgar dedicated this composition “to my friends pictured within.” Each of the variations is a character sketch with a cryptic title. As is usually the case, the program book “decoded” all of those titles. (Frederic Ashton did one better by bringing them to life as characters in his ballet “Enigma Variations (My Friends Pictured Within).”) The performance involved another engaging solo turn, this time by Principal Viola Jonathan Vinocour in the “Dorabella” variation. Collon’s command of the overall journey through the fourteen variations could not have been more engaging.

The only disappointment of the evening came at the beginning. Three-piece Suite consists of three excerpts from Thomas Adès opera Powder Her Face rearranged for large ensemble. I have been writing about Adès on this site since 2009. He has an intellectual side that challenges the mind, but that does not necessary result in an engaging listening experience. Since the opera is based on a sex scandal, one would have expected some degree of shock value in its realization through music; but last night’s excerpts never rose about the level of trivially ludicrous. Over the past decades, Adès may have been viewed by many as the “composer of the future;” but, as the old joke goes, that time has passed.

Bruno Monteiro’s Century of Diversity

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

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

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

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

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

Ferrández Debuts at SFS with Engaging Elgar

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

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

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

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

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

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

Change of Conductor This Week at SFS

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

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

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

Alisa Weilerstein on DSOLive

It has been a while since I took the time for live-streaming the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) for its latest Live from Orchestra Hall Webcast. For that matter, it has been even longer (one month short of a year, according to my records) since I have seen Music Director Jader Bignamini on the podium. (My most recent article was about a visit to the podium by Nicholas McGegan.) In addition, this was the first time that my wife and I live-streamed a Sunday matinee in Detroit, rather than the usual evening performance.

Alisa Weilerstein performing with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (screen shot from the video being discussed)

It has also been quite a while since I saw Alisa Weilerstein appear as a concert soloist. However, this particular program presented Edward Elgar’s Opus 85 cello concerto in E minor; and neither my wife nor I wanted to miss it. We were not disappointed. Weilerstein was as passionate as ever as she negotiated the wide spectrum of emotional dispositions that unfolded during this concerto’s three movements. Her chemistry with Bignamini could not have been better, and he seemed to enjoy this opportunity to present Elgar’s music as much as she did. As might be expected, she followed her concerto performance with an encore, the Sarabande movement from the BWV 1010 unaccompanied cello suite in E-flat major by Johann Sebastian Bach.

[side-bar commentary: Unannounced encores can be frustrating, particularly when I have to account for them. While Weilerstein was playing, I jotted down the opening rhythmic motif and wrote “Sarabande.” Then, during the intermission, I pulled out my Casals CDs, worked my way through the Saraband movements of the Bach solo cello suites until I found the right one! Sometimes, my computer room has better affordances than the concert hall!]

Furthermore, Weilerstein seemed to enjoy her visit to Detroit enough to take a back seat in the cello section for the second half of the program! This was “warhorse time” for the ensemble, a performance of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Opus 35, his symphonic suite Scheherazade. It is “symphonic” because it is in four movements, but the structure is more of a multi-movement tone poem than a symphony. The suite movements are inspired by episodes from One Thousand and One Nights. However, it would be an exaggeration to say that the music provides a “literary” account of the source texts. More appropriate would be that the composer was inspired by reflecting on those texts.

I have now seen enough DSO telecasts to know that Bignamini really enjoys the rich sonorities of a full ensemble. With Scheherazade he was in hog heaven and clearly enjoying every minute of it. What was important, though, was that it seemed as if his joyful enthusiasm was faithfully reflected by every member of the ensemble (even the “back benchers” in the string sections). This was far from a here-we-go-again account of music that most of us have heard too many times. Rather, the combination of the attentive performance and the well-conceived video perspective made for an experience that was both refreshing and stimulating.

The video was not quite as perceptive for the opening selection, the overture that Felix Mendelssohn composed for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The camera crew managed to overlook the tuba player during his only solo (which was limited to four notes)! Otherwise, both the performance and the camera work allowed for full appreciation of the freshness of a composition that is now over two centuries old. There are often times when I feel tired of Mendelssohn’s music, but there was nothing tiring about Bignamini’s approach to this particular score.

Vox Humana SF: The Debut in San Francisco

The logo for the new Vox Humana SF ensemble (from its home page)

This weekend saw the launch of Vox Humana SF, a new a cappella choir founded by its Artistic Director Don Scott Carpenter. The first performance took place this past Friday evening in Belvedere, but the program was repeated last night here in San Francisco at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. The title of the program was, appropriately enough, In the Beginning. The repertoire covered an extensive interval of time, from the early nineteenth century of Felix Mendelssohn to the very recent past of Reena Esmail.

The title of the program was also the title of the first selection after the intermission, Aaron Copland’s setting of the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis. Much of the structure involved call-and-response, with the “call” coming from the solo mezzo Meghan Crosby-Jolliffe and the “response” from the full ensemble. Those readers that recall my account of the Sony Classical anthology Copland Conducts Copland – The Complete Columbia Album Collection may or may not agree with me that the music of this champion of the twentieth century has not survived the test of time very well. “In the Beginning” was part of that anthology; and, even with the freshness of contemporary voices, the rhetoric of the music itself began to get tiresome well into the Third Day of the Creation.

Indeed, the selection by Mendelssohn, three selected movements from his setting of the Mass in the German language, was far fresher in its impact. This was probably due in part of the interplay of the four solo voices during the Gloria portion (“Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe”). The interleaving of soprano Morgan Balfour, alto Shauna Fallihee, tenor Sam Faustine, and bass Jefferson Packer with the ensemble revealed a technically elegant side of Mendelssohn’s expressiveness that is not encountered in his instrumental works. It also made for an engaging coupling with its much later predecessor on the program, the opening selection of “Alleluia,” composed in 1990 by Algirdas Martinaitis and featuring soprano Kelly Ballou as soloist.

The oldest composer on the program was followed by the youngest, Reena Esmail. Those that have followed this site for some time know that Esmail was one of the composers included in Sarah Cahill’s Future is Female performances, and her music was also featured at the 2021 International Piano Festival. However, I do not think I have encountered any of her music since May of 2022, when Earplay presented her “Nadiya.” Her choral offering, “Even after all this time…” included a clarinet solo performed by Kevin Tang, which made for a decided contrast to the vocal sonorities. While the text for this selection was brief (six lines of blank verse), I felt that the music had overstayed its welcome somewhere around its halfway mark. This was followed by “Schaffe in mir, Gott, ein reines Herz” (create in me a clean heart, O God), the second of the two Opus 29 five-part motets by Johannes Brahms, whose brevity (three sentences) came across with far greater impact.

The program concluded with a coupling of two contrasting works. “Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae,” composed by Jaako Mäntyjärvi in 1997, is a harrowing account of a shipwreck of a car ferry in the Baltic Sea. Solo passages were taken by soprano Cheryl Cain and precentor Jack Wilkins. The entire text (which is in Latin) is framed by citations of the “Lux æterna” portion of the Requiem Mass. That work was then followed by the full “Lux æterna” text arranged by John Cameron in a setting of the “Nimrod” music from Edward Elgar’s “Enigma Variations.”

Taken as a whole, the evening was a thoroughly engaging account of the diversity of the a cappella repertoire, making for an absorbing journey of discovery and leaving at least some of us wondering about what will come next.

SFBC to Launch December Holiday Programming

A previous “seasonal” performance by SFBC

As usual, December is the month of holiday-appropriate programming, regardless of what holiday is being celebrated. This year the San Francisco Bach Choir and its Artistic Director Magen Solomon will be “first out of the gate” with two performances of a program entitled A (Mostly) English Candlelight Christmas. The “mostly” qualifier applies to the composers that will be represented on the program. Specific selections have not yet been announced; but the contributing composers will be William Byrd, Edward Elgar, John Rutter, Christopher Tye, Chen Yi, and (of course) George Frideric Handel, who will be represented by three choruses from his HWV 56 oratorio Messiah. There will also be a world premiere performance, whose details also have not yet been announced. Instrumental performances will be by both the Golden Gate Brass Quintet and the organ of Calvary Presbyterian Church.

The church will host two performance of the program. The first will be at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, December 2, followed by a 4 p.m. performance on Sunday, December 3. The church is located at 2515 Fillmore Street on the northwest corner of Jackson Street. General admission will be $40, $35 for seniors, and $15 for students. Those under the age of eighteen will be admitted for free. The concert will be recorded and made available to ticket holders roughly 2–3 weeks later. In-person concert tickets include access to the video when it is available. The video will be available for sale for those without tickets at $25. It will be launched about 30 days after the performances. Tickets may be purchased online through separate Web pages for December 2 and December 3. Both Web pages also include a hyperlink for donations.

Thibaudet Traverses Debussy’s 24 Preludes

Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet (photograph by Andrew Eccles, courtesy of San Francisco Symphony)

Last night in Davies Symphony Hall the San Francisco Symphony presented the latest installment in its Great Performers Series. Like the last installment two weeks ago, this was a solo performance, this time by French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. The program was devoted entirely to the solo piano preludes composed by Claude Debussy.

These 24 preludes were collected in two books. The first of those books was completed in 1910, and the second appeared in 1913. Unlike the preludes of Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier or Frédéric Chopin’s Opus 28, the preludes do not systematically traverse the major and minor modes of the twelve pitches in the chromatic scale. Also unlike those predecessors, each prelude is given a title, which allows the listener to form a mental image while the music is being played. While most recitalists tend to perform small groups of selected preludes, both books were played in their entirety for their premiere performances.

Last night one could appreciate both how Thibaudet rose to the many technical challenges encountered on the score pages and how he found interpretations that would reflect on the evocative titles assigned to the preludes. If Debussy did not account for every major and minor key, he still endowed each prelude with its own distinctive mental image. Many of these involve reflections delivered with hints of sadness, as is the case with “Des pas sur la neige” (footprints in the snow). At the other extreme, the composer was capable of being raucously comic, which is probably most evident in “Homage à S. Pickwick, Esq. P.P.M.P.C.”  (Who knew that Debussy had an interest in Charles Dickens?)

Taken as a whole, this was a program that imposed serious demands on audience attention. However, as Thibaudet progressed through the collection, delivering just the right rhetorical stance for each prelude, that attention was well rewarded. The rewards also included an encore selection, even though Thibaudet had clearly given his all to accounting for Debussy. That encore was Edward Elgar’s own piano arrangement of his Opus 12 “Salut D’Amour,” suggesting one final reflection on a unique rhetorical disposition.

Clerestory Announces Post-Pandemic Program

The Clerestory vocalists at their Christmas performance last month at the Noe Valley Ministry

Following up on last month’s Christmas concert, Clerestory will return to Noe Valley for its first performance of the new year. To mark the emergence from pandemic conditions, the professional all-male vocal ensemble will present a timely program entitled Phoenix Rising. As was the case with the Christmas concert, program details have not yet been finalized for announcement. However, the theme of the program will involve a musical exploration of loss, longing, metamorphosis, and rebirth.

Composers from the Renaissance will include Thomas Tallis and Josquin des Prez. At the other end of the timeline, there will be new works by living composers like Saunder Choi and Stacy Garrop. The “classical” composers on the program will include Clara Schumann, Edward Elgar, and Gustav Holst.

The San Francisco performance of this program has been scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 4. The Noe Valley Ministry is located at 1021 Sanchez Street, between 23rd Street and Elizabeth Street. Tickets are being handled through an Eventbrite event page. General Admission is $30 with a $20 rate for seniors and $5 for students.

BBC Legends 3: Mstislav Rostropovich

The sixteenth CD in the latest BBC Legends release is devoted to Mstislav Rostropovich performing with the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) in the Royal Festival Hall. Rostropovich is best known as a virtuoso cellist; but, as his career advanced, he also performed as a conductor. His BBC Legends CD presents him in both capacities over the course of three concertos.

The album begins with a performance that took place on July 1, 1965, at which he exercised both talents. From the soloist’s chair he led a performance of Joseph Haydn’s Hoboken VIIb/1 cello concerto in C major. For the remaining two concertos, he passed the baton (literally) to Gennady Rozhdestvensky. The second concerto on the album is Camille Saint-Saëns’ Opus 33 (first) in A minor, recorded on July 7 of the same month. The remaining selection was recorded earlier on July 5, Edward Elgar’s Opus 85 concerto in E minor.

The Haydn concerto was a recent arrival to the cello repertoire, since the score was only discovered in 1961. Prior to that year concert goers and record collectors had assumed that Haydn had written only one concerto. The concerto received its twentieth-century premiere on May 19, 1962, when Charles Mackerras conducted the Czechoslovak Radio Symphony Orchestra with Miloš Sádlo as the cello soloist. After that it became “open season;” and it is hard to find a major virtuoso cellist that has not performed the concerto. Nevertheless, Rostropovich’s “double duty” with the LSO is definitely an engaging account of the Haydn concerto, making this performance one of the more memorable offerings in the entire box set.

The subsequent coupling of Saint-Saëns and Elgar is also likely to appeal to the attentive listener. The two composers were contemporaries, but their approaches to composition differ markedly. Both concertos are popular in the symphony orchestra repertoire. My own personal bias lies with the Elgar, but I always seem to find engaging aspects of the Saint-Saëns concerto whenever I have a chance to listen to a cellist that clearly appreciates the music! However, what interests me is that the Saint-Saëns concerto shows up on both the Deutsche Grammophon and EMI Rostropovich anthologies (and twice for EMI); but neither set includes the Elgar. So it seems appropriate to acknowledge that the BBC has provided a valuable service for those of us that enjoy that Elgar offering! (For the record, as they say, Amazon.com has a Web page for those interested to purchasing this particular CD as a single!)

BBC Legends: Farewell to John Barbirolli

Conductor John Barbirolli (cropped detail of a photograph by Paolo Monti, from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license)

The overly skimpy text on the back of the box of 20 CDs for the third volume in the ICA Classics BBC Legends series begins with the following sentence:

The third 20 CD box in the series features Sir John Barbirolli in his final concert.

As is often the case when insufficient space is provided for significant information, that sentence is not quite accurate. Ironically, it can easily be corrected by the addition of a single word: The second CD in the box, documenting Barbirolli conducting The Hallé orchestra in St Nicholas Chapel at the King’s Lynn Festival in Norfolk, England, presents two of the three compositions performed at his final recorded concert.

This took place on Friday, July 24, 1970. The following day he would conduct a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 92 (seventh) symphony in A major. He then shifted his attention to rehearsing the New Philharmonia Orchestra on July 29 and died later on that date.

The two recorded selections on the ICA Classics Barbirolli CD are both by Edward Elgar, and most likely they were the “bookends” for the full concert. The opening selection was the Opus 47 “Introduction and Allegro for String Quartet and String Orchestra;” and the program concluded with the Opus 55 (first) symphony in A-flat major. The selection that was not included on the CD (but was released on an Intaglio album) was Elgar’s Opus 37 song cycle Sea Pictures (sung by mezzo Kerstin Meyer).

Mind you, all three of these compositions are available in that wonderful box set, Sir John Barbirolli: The Complete Warner Recordings, which I wrote about on this site in 2020 and continue to consult with generous frequency. Indeed, there are five different recordings of Opus 47 in that box. Furthermore, from a personal point of view, Opus 47 was one of the first compositions given an in-depth analysis in my undergraduate Orchestration class. By the time our work was done on that piece, I no longer needed to follow the score while listening to it!

Barbirolli was 70 when he died of a heart attack. As is clear from his activities in Norfolk, that attack was unexpected. The New Philharmonia rehearsal was for a tour of Japan. He had also prepared a return to the Royal Opera House to conduct a production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello. (The Warner box includes a recording of that opera in its entirety.) He had also planned to make recordings of that composer’s Falstaff and Giacomo Puccini’s Manon Lescaut (both of which are represented by excerpts in the Warner box).

Mind you, he had suffered a series of collapses in the months leading up to the King’s Lynn Festival; so it would probably be fairer to say that his death was not entirely unexpected. Nevertheless, he seemed to have been determined to provide perceptive interpretations of the repertoire for as long as his health would allow him to do so. Those closest to him were probably more concerned about the likelihood of death than he was; but those concerns did not make the event any more bearable.

CBSO Launches SFS Great Performers Series

CBSO Music Director Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla (photograph by Frans Jansen, courtesy of SFS)

Last night Davies Symphony Hall saw the launch of the 2022–23 Great Performers Series presented by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). The first of the ten programs in this Series presented a visit by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO), led by conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and featuring cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason as concerto soloist. Kanneh-Mason made his San Francisco debut this past April in another Great Performers concert at Davies, joined on that occasion by his sister Isata at the piano. For his debut in Davies as a concerto soloist, he selected Edward Elgar’s Opus 85 cello concerto in E minor.

For her instrumental selections Gražinytė-Tyla presented instrumental music taken from two operas from two consecutive centuries. The program began with Benjamin Britten’s Opus 33a, composed in 1945. This was a suite of four extended instrumental passages from his Peter Grimes opera (Opus 33), which Britten called “Sea Interludes.” The intermission was followed by a four-movement symphony that Thomas Adès created in 2020 based on thematic material from his The Exterminating Angel opera. The program concluded with Claude Debussy’s three-movement tone poem “La Mer.”

As a recitalist, Kanneh-Mason had provided a highly imaginative program for four interconnected sonatas, which made for some thoroughly engaging reading in the program book followed by an equally engaging listening experience. His approach to Elgar’s Opus 85 may not have been as intricately cerebral, but his interpretation provided a rich account of the full scope of the composer’s dispositions. Since I have a more-than-generous supply of recordings of this concerto, I never have any problems with following the composer’s thematic logic; but I was still impressed by the breath of expressive approaches that Kanneh-Mason mined over the course of the concerto’s four movements.

Following his well-deserved ovation, Kanneh-Mason decided that the audience deserved a broader cello experience. He thus recruited the four performers on the first two stands in the cello section to perform a five-voice account of a Bach chorale. Which Bach chorale? This enquiring mind wanted to know! During the intermission, I approached the leader of the cello section; and all he could show me was a single sheet of paper with the music he had just played … no title and not even a BWV number! Suffice it to say that the music provided meditative quietude after the passionate outpourings of the cello concerto. [added 10/17, 10:05 a.m.:

Cyberspace to the rescue! Multiple sources identified the encore selection as a song, rather than a chorale. The title of the song is “Komm, süßer Tod” (come sweet death, BWV 478), one of Johann Sebastian Bach’s 33 contributions to the Musicalisches Gesang-Buch compiled by Georg Christian Schemelli in 1736. (The total number of songs in the collection is 954.) These were published in figured bass notation as follows:

from Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Presumably, Kanneh-Mason prepared his own four-voice realization of the figured bass for the accompaniment to the vocal line. (This arrangement was recorded on his recently released Song album.)]

For that matter, where “passionate outpourings” are concerned, Gražinytė-Tyla’s approach to Britten’s interludes could not have been more engaging. By departing from the visual element of the opera experience, Britten could engage the full attention of the listener with a multitude of rich sonorities based on imaginative blends of his instrumental resources. The interludes themselves do not follow the ordering of the opera’s narrative. Rather, they are ordered by time-of-day, beginning with dawn and concluding with a midnight storm, whose calming coda adds one final excerpt from the opera score to the mix. Gražinytė-Tyla definitely knew the best way to introduce the full extent of her orchestra to the audience.

Sadly, the second half of the program she prepared was far less engaging. I have to confess that my familiarity with The Exterminating Angel is limited to having seen the PBS broadcast of its performance by the Metropolitan Opera. I found that I could only negotiate that performance by rousing up as many memories of the Luis Buñuel film on which the libretto was based as I could muster. Under those circumstances, the music had about as much impact as the furniture (if that much).

Through past experiences of Adès performances by the San Francisco Symphony, I knew that loud and louder were the composer’s favorite dynamic levels. Notwithstanding the usual Spinal Tap joke about cranking the amplifier up to eleven, Gražinytė-Tyla took the second movement of Adès’ symphony (a march), and cranked the volume level all the way to the threshold of pain and then crossed that threshold. Again I had to reflect back on Buñuel and the subtle quietude with which his fascinatingly perverse plot unfolded.

Unfortunately, that rhetoric of overblown dynamics spilled over into the concluding Debussy selection. Yes, there are several stunning moments in the composer’s approach to imagery that deserve intense dynamics. Indeed, there is a lush grandeur to the coda of the final movement that almost suggests familiarity with the rich Yiddish connotations of “kvell.” Unfortunately, Gražinytė-Tyla seemed interested in little more than amplitude, rather than its impact on personal dispositions. Debussy definitely deserved better.

Winpenny Plays Complete Elgar Organ Works

courtesy of Naxos of America

Towards the end of last month, Naxos released a Complete Organ Works album for the composer Edward Elgar. Elgar’s father had served as organist of St. George's Roman Catholic Church in Worcester from 1846 to 1885, but his own knowledge of the organ and performance technique was the result of reading books on the subject. The organist on this new album is Tom Winpenny, whose credentials include serving as sub-organist at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

The works that Elgar composed explicitly for the organ are very limited. In fact, there are only two of them: the Opus 14 Vesper Voluntaries collection and the Opus 28 sonata in G major. The rest of the album consists of arrangements for the instrument. Only three of these are by Elgar himself: the Opus 3 “Cantique,” the “Loughborough Memorial Chime,” and the “Solemn March” movement from his Opus 25 cantata The Black Night. The remaining seven tracks all involve arrangements by others, but all made during Elgar’s lifetime.

Given that Elgar was self-taught where the organ was concerned, the fact that he composed for the instrument at all represents a significant accomplishment. However, his most compelling offerings are the shortest, the eight voluntaries of Opus 14 framed with both an introduction and an intermezzo. That said, I would probably prefer encountering those selections over the course of a vespers service; but I appreciate the extent to which this recording would prepare me for encountering them in that setting.

The arrangements by others are less compelling. The objective seems to have been to provide organ versions of “listener favorites” from the Elgar catalog. Thus, we have William Henry Harris’ arrangement of the “Nimrod” variation from the Opus 36 “Enigma” variations and an arrangement by George Robertson Sinclair (the organist at Hereford Cathedral, who appears in the ninth of the Opus 36 variations) of the fourth (in G major) of the “Pomp and Circumstance” marches. The results are at least moderately engaging, but more effective at triggering memories of Elgar’s original orchestrations.

Nevertheless, I am very much an “all things Elgar” listener; and those that sail under my flag will probably be as gratified to encounter this new release as I am!

Ives Collective: Music That Merits More Attention

Yesterday afternoon at Old First Presbyterian Church, Old First Concerts hosted the latest program prepared by the Ives Collective. This is basically a “pickup” chamber music group managed by cellist Stephen Harrison and Susan Freier, who plays both violin and viola. They then recruit other musicians based on the selections planned for the program.

Yesterday’s program was devoted entirely to twentieth-century music. However, the works came from different periods in the lives of their respective composers. Benjamin Britten was nineteen years old when he composed his Opus 2 “Phantasy” quartet for oboe and string trio. Rebecca Clarke’s piano trio was composed about a decade earlier, but she was in her mid-thirties at that time. Only a couple of years earlier, Edward Elgar composed his piano quintet in A minor, when he was in his early sixties.

I have to confess that the Elgar quintet had the strongest pull on my attention for personal reasons. Back when we were living in Los Angeles, my wife and I took a road-trip up the Pacific Coast to Santa Maria, which included a detour, because I wanted her to see Solvang. We had no real plan for what we would do in Santa Maria, but it turned out that the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts was hosting a chamber music performance. I cannot remember anything about the performers; but that event provided my “first contact” with the Elgar quintet. I was hooked from the darkness of the opening gesture, and my attention never waned over the course of the work’s three movements.

The fact is that, prior to that evening, I had no idea that Elgar had composed any chamber music. In fact, he is known for only three works in that genre, all of which were composed after the end of World War I. Given that Elgar had been subject to depression before that war, there is a sense that the quintet provided him with a means to work through his latest bout with this malady. The result might almost be called “a long night’s journey into day,” with the Allegro of the final movement finally allowing the composer to raise his spirits.

For yesterday afternoon’s account, Freier took the second violin part, performing with first violinist Jeremy Preston. Harrison’s cello work was paired with Melissa Matson on viola. The piano was played by Keisuke Nakagoshi. All five of the players clearly appreciated that Elgar had crafted an emotional roller coaster, but they could not have done a better job in taking command of all of the music’s rhetorical twists and turns. The program book included the following sentence by Dr. Derek Katz:

George Bernard Shaw felt the Piano Quintet was in the same vein as Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture, and was the finest thing of that sort since Beethoven’s Overture.

I am no great fan of Shaw’s writings about music, but Elgar’s quintet needs all of the boosting it can get. I should not have to measure the temporal distances of my encounters with this music in decades!

This past Friday this site wrote about how Rebecca Clarke’s name was mistakenly assumed to be a pseudonym for Ernest Bloch when it was entered in a 1919 competition sponsored by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. Clarke’s identity was finally established, but she still placed second behind Bloch when the awards were announced. At the next competition in 1921, Clarke’s piano trio again placed second.

In introducing this trio yesterday afternoon, Harrison suggested that one could detect passages reminiscent of Bloch’s music. I am not sure I agree. As those who read Friday’s article know, I have been more than happy to take Clarke’s music on its own terms.

Listening to the piano trio yesterday afternoon was no exception. Freier played violin for this selection, joined by Harrison and Nakagoshi. This was my “first contact” with Clarke’s trio in performance; and I definitely hope that my second opportunity comes sooner, rather than later.

Some readers may recall that the Britten centennial year (2013) was celebrated with London releasing its recordings of the composer’s complete works. Unless I am mistaken, that was my “first contact” with his Opus 2. Like Clarke’s trio, this piece was entered in a competition, this time funded by Walter Willson Cobbett.

Both Britten and his teacher, Frank Bridge, had submitted works to Cobbett’s competitions. Curiously, the program notes say nothing about whether either of them received any awards. What is cited is Britten’s skill in developing a relatively short single-movement composition that follows the usual four-movement structure. The music may lack the attention given to the more mature Britten compositions; but it was definitely given an engaging reading yesterday afternoon with Kyle Bruckmann taking the oboe part, joined by Preston on violin and Freier on viola.