Noe Music Directors to Perform with “Friends”

Mosaic of the performers participating in the next Noe Music recital (from the Noe Music Web page for ticket purchases)

Regular readers probably know by now that both of the Co-Artistic and Executive Directors of Noe Music are, themselves, performing musicians. Meena Bhasin is a violist, and Owen Dalby plays violin. This month they will host an “& friends” program of viola quintet music. They will be joined by violinist Livia Sohn, violist Ayane Kozasa, and cellist Hanna Collins. Collins will be making her Noe Music debut.

The program will be framed by two of those quintets from two different centuries. They will be presented in chronological order. The opening selection will be Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 516 quintet in G minor, and the program will conclude with Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 87 quintet in B-flat major. Between these two selections, Sohn and Collins will join Dalby and Bhasin in a performance of “Tenebrae,” a string quartet composed by Osvaldo Golijov.

As usual, the performance will take place at 4 p.m. on a Sunday, March 17. The venue will be the Noe Valley Ministry, located at 1021 Sanchez Street, between 23rd Street and Elizabeth Street. Open seating tickets may be purchased with prices of $45 for general admission and $15 for students. (The reserved seats in the first few rows have already been sold out.) All available tickets may be purchased through a single Web page.

Schwabacher Summer Concert Details Announced

Regular readers probably know by now that, in a little less than a month’s time, the Merola Opera Program will present two performances of the Schwabacher Summer Concert. This is an annual event structured around staged scenes. This year the production will consist of extended performances of four selections, each drawing upon an opera by a Latin American or Spanish composer. Specifics are as follows:

1. The Spanish composer Manuel de Falla will be represented with selections from his two-act opera La vida breve (life is short). The librettist was Carlos Fernández-Shaw, who drew upon the Andalusian dialect. While the opera won first prize in a Spanish competition in 1905, Falla could not get the opera produced until he took it to France, where it was first performed (with a French translation of the libretto by Paul Millet) in Nice on April 1, 1913. The complete opera is only about an hour long, but it tends to be best known for instrumental excerpts.
2. Florencia en el Amazonas (Florence in the Amazon), by the Mexican composer Daniel Catán working with librettist Marcela Fuentes-Berain, was jointly commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera, the Los Angeles Opera, and the Seattle Opera. This made it the first Spanish-language opera to be commissioned by a major American opera company. The libretto was based on characters in the novel Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez. Scenes from the second act of this opera will be performed.
3. The third source of excerpts will be the three-act Spanish zarzuela Doña Francisquita, composed in 1923 by Amadeo Vives. The libretto was provided by Federica Romero and Guillermo Fernández-Shaw, based on the play La discreta enamorada (the ingenious lover) by Lope de Vega.
4. The program will conclude with selections from Ainadamar (fountain of tears), the first opera by Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov. The title of the opera is an Arabic word. David Henry Hwang provided a Spanish-language libretto. The plot involves the relationship between Federico García Lorca and his lover and muse, Catalan actress Margarita Xirgu. The music was scored almost entirely for female voices.

These selections will all be staged by Jose Maria Condemi, currently the Carol Franc Buck Distinguished Chair and the Director of Opera and Musical Theater at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM). The conductor will be Jorge Parodi, General and Artistic Director of Opera Hispánica.

As has already been announced, the two performances will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 14, and at 3 p.m. on Saturday, July 16. Ticket prices will be $80 and $55. San Francisco Opera has created a single event page from which tickets for both performances can be purchased.

Avi Avital’s Delightful Return to Herbst Theatre

Brooklyn Rider Members Nicholas Cords, Colin Jacobsen, Michael Nicolas, and Johnny Gandelsman with Avi Avital (from the San Francisco Performances event page)

Last night in Herbst Theatre mandolinist Avi Avital made his debut as a San Francisco Performances artist. However, this was not his first appearance in Herbst. He had previously appeared in March of 2010, when he was the guest soloist with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. He fulfilled that same role last night, performing as guest artist in a program prepared by the Brooklyn Rider string quartet of violinists Johnny Gandelsman and Colin Jacobsen, violist Nicholas Cords, and cellist Michael Nicolas.

If this article has accorded Avital “top billing,” it is because his were the most satisfying contributions to last night’s program. His solo performance of a prelude composed by Giovanni Sollima reinforced his reputation for expressive performances of a diverse repertoire, both in concert and in his catalog of recordings. He then contributed to two world premiere performances, Osvaldo Golijov’s “Arum der Fayer” and Jacobsen’s recently completed “Time and Again,” conceived as a “biographical memory” of Brooklyn Rider activities.

Sadly, “Time and Again” won the award for most tedious composition on the program. It amounted to an exploration of a brief motif that had become a “signature” of Brooklyn Rider technique. Unfortunately, Jacobsen had exhausted the potential of exploring that motif even before the performance had hit the halfway mark in its duration.

Indeed, that underlying premise of having little to say and saying it over an extended duration seems to have become a bit of a trademark for Brooklyn Rider. Last night’s program was brief enough to be performed without intermission; but, with few exceptions, the interpretation of the selections on the program emerged as little more than an extended slog. Even the original inventiveness of Clarice Assad’s “Obrigado” could not hold its own during last nights presentation; and the abundant humor of Caroline Shaw’s “Entr’acte,” matching Joseph Haydn joke-for-joke, was a mere shadow of the splendid interpretation of this music presented by the New Esterházy Quartet as an “overture” to a concert (in Herbst) by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale in October of 2019.

The best part of the program turned out to be the opening selection, which was the only work on the program by a deceased composer. Luigi Boccherini was represented by “Musica notturna delle strade di Madrid” (night music of the streets of Madrid). This was originally composed as a string quintet, but last night’s quintet served the interpretation of the score quite well.

Sadly, no program notes were provided for a highly programmatic composition; and the title listed in the program was misleading: “La Musica Notturna Ritratta di Madrid.” The final movement is given the title “Ritirata” (as spelled on the Wikipedia page), depicting the changing of the guard for the night watch. However, the program began with the performance of all seven movements of the composition; and the imagery of each of the movements was engagingly depicted through the quintet’s interpretations of the score.

Once the guard had retreated, the dark cloud of tedium descended over the remaining quintet performances.

Brooklyn Rider to Bring Eclectic Program to SFP

Next month the Brooklyn Rider string quartet of violinists Johnny Gandelsman and Colin Jacobsen, violist Nicholas Cords, and cellist Michael Nicolas will return to San Francisco Performances (SFP), having given a PIVOT Festival performance this past October with tenor Nicholas Phan. Their second appearance of the season will also include a guest artist, mandolinist Avi Avital, who has previously performed in Herbst Theatre as a guest soloist with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra in 2010. Readers probably also know that Gandelsman was the second solo recitalist to perform in the SFP Sanctuary Series this past Friday.

The program will be an eclectic one, featuring the world premiere of “Arum der Fayer,” composed for mandolin and string quartet by Osvaldo Golijov. Avital will also give a solo performance of a prelude by the contemporary Italian composer Giovanni Sollima. The quartet repertoire will also be diverse, beginning with “La Musica Notturna Ritratta di Madrid” by Luigi Boccherini and recent compositions by Caroline Shaw and Clarice Assad.

This program will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 12. The venue will be Herbst Theatre, whose entrance is the main entrance to the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, located on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. The venue is excellent for public transportation, since that corner has Muni bus stops for both north-south and east-west travel.

Ticket prices are $65 (premium Orchestra and front and center Dress Circle), $55 (remainder of Orchestra, all Side Boxes, and center rear Dress Circle), and $45 (remaining Dress Circle and Balcony); and they may be purchased through an SFP secure Web page. Single tickets can also be purchased at the door as available with a 50% discount for students and a 20% discount for seniors. Single tickets may also be purchased by calling 415-392-2545.

February Telegraph Quartet Concerts Postponed

Readers may recall the announcement made this past December that “Contrapassos,” a new composition by Robert Sirota scored for string quartet and soprano, would finally be given two premiere performances. Those performances were originally scheduled for 2020, making them some of the earliest offerings to sustain cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They were subsequently rescheduled for early this month on February 8 (Noontime Concerts) and February 10 (San Francisco Conservatory of Music). It was also announced that the February 10 concert would premiere Osvaldo Golijov’s octet, “Ever Yours,” with the St. Lawrence String Quartet joining Telegraph. This morning it was announced that both of these concerts would be postponed due to the continuation of pandemic conditions.

The Knights’ Second Warner Classics Album Features Yo-Yo Ma

Towards the end of 2014, the Brooklyn-based orchestral collective known as The Knights announced their debut as exclusive Warner Classics artists; and their debut album, entitled the ground beneath our feet was released in January of 2015. This coming Friday Warner will release their second album, Azul; and, as usual, Amazon.com has already created a Web page for the album from which pre-orders may be placed. The title of the album is also the title of the longest composition to be included, a work by Osvaldo Golijov that had been commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and written for cellist Yo-Yo Ma, who gave the premiere performance. Ma is also soloist in this performance; and, along with his performance in two shorter selections, his contribution amounts to more than half of the entire album.

Ma seems to be building up a reputation as the Yehudi Menuhin of this new century. This has less to do with his music-making than the way in which he has established himself as a “citizen of the world,” not only through his global presence as a performer but also by seeking out a broad scope of “intercultural” performance opportunities, rather than confining himself to “standard repertoire.” In Menuhin’s case, however, the downside was that he did not always “get into” the spirit of many of his cross-cultural collaborations, while, at the same time, his “standard repertoire” performances tended to settle into the comfortable category of being merely capable. Ma’s departures from “standard repertoire” are almost always adventurous; but their rewards, at least for serious listeners, tend to be variable.

To a great extent, then, “Azul” can be taken as an opportunity for Ma to come back to the “concert zone,” but with a composition that is very much situated in our immediate present. The title is the Spanish word for “blue;” and its relevance is established in the accompanying booklet by the words of astronaut Charles Walker documenting his first impression of seeing our planet from his viewpoint in outer space. However, the music was inspired by verses from a book-length poem in twelve parts completed by Pablo Neruda in 1945 and entitled Alturas de Macchu Picchu (the heights of Macchu Picchu), the Inca citadel that Neruda had visited in 1943.

The verses that Golijov selected dwell on one of his own favorite themes, the loneliness of an individual in the vastness of the cosmos. This is also the underlying theme of “Tenebrae,” a Golijov composition that has enjoyed several different performances by different chamber groups in my home town of San Francisco. Indeed, the spirit of “Tenebrae” returns in the final movement of “Azul,” while each of the preceding movements explores specific phrases from Neruda and, in the case of the first movement, specific text.

The result is surprisingly effective; and it is definitely to the advantage of all those who take listening seriously that there is now such a fine document of this music in performance. However, since such listeners tend to be interested in acquiring and maintaining a broad repertoire, many will be struck by the motif that pervades this composition from the very first statement by the solo cello. It is also the opening motif in Leoš Janáček’s first string quartet, based on Leo Tolstoy’s novella The Kreutzer Sonata. Presumably, Ma has played the cello part in at least one quartet performance of this piece; but (fortunately) he does not seem to have tried to establish a connection between Janáček and Golijov!

However, if “Azul” elevates the listener to other-worldly heights, the rest of the album brings him/her back to earth with a dull thud. The opening selection is a followup to the concerto for santur (Persian dulcimer) and violin composed jointly by Siamak Aghaei and Colin Jacobsen (one of the two Artistic Directors of The Knights) featured on the ground beneath our feet. Entitled “Ascending Bird,” the piece allows Ma to cut loose with some non-standard cadenza work; and there is no questioning the richness of the work’s overall instrumentation. However, I found it difficult to resist recalling the sex therapist’s response to the exchanges between Frank Drebin and Jane Spencer at the beginning of Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult, “Please, I’m a diabetic.” The sugar-coating on this music has been laid on far thicker than my personal tastes prefer! The same can be said of Jesse Diener-Bennett’s arrangement of the “Song to the Moon” from Antonín Dvořák’s opera Rusalka, in which Ma’s cello work never really rises to the expressiveness that a skilled soprano can bring to this music.

The remainder of the album consists of The Knights playing two decidedly non-standard arrangements. The first of these is Caroline Shaw’s “Leo” movement from Karlheinz Stockhausen’s zodiac-inspired Tierkreis, originally composed for music boxes. This music is often held up as the prime example of a Stockhausen composition that does not sound like Stockhausen, and it is unclear that Shaw has done anything to establish either an alternative or an enlightening point of view.

The album then concludes with a suite of movements from Run Rabbit Run, an album that took the tracks from Sufjan Stevens’ Enjoy Your Rabbit and rearranged them for string ensemble. Five of those arrangements were created by Michael Atkinson, who plays horn for The Knights; and four of them are included in this suite. This is definitely “fun music;” but, with due respect to John Updike, who wrote Rabbit, Run and its four sequels, the whole thing sounds a bit too much like “Kronos Redux” for a larger ensemble.