Olivier Latry Returns to Davies Ruffatti Organ

Conductor Stéphane Denève (courtesy of SFS)

The Ruffatti organ in Davies Symphony Hall is having a workout this week with the return to the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) of organist Olivier Latry performing under the baton of Stéphane Denève, who made his SFS debut in 2009. The first half of the program concluded with Francis Poulenc’s organ concerto, whose full title is “Concerto pour orgue, cordes et timbales” (concerto for organ, timpani and strings), structured as a single movement with six changes in tempo. The second half was devoted entirely to Camille Saint-Saëns’ Opus 78 (third) symphony in C minor, known as the “Organ Symphony” for the addition of a pipe organ during the latter portions of both movements. The “overture” for the program was “Flammenschrift” (fire-letter), composed by Guillaume Connesson and performed by SFS for the first time. At the beginning of the performance, Denève announced that the program would be dedicated to the memory of Michael Tilson Thomas.

The program was at its strongest in the second half. The symphony has a four-movement structure, but there is only a pause between the end of the Poco adagio movement and the Allegro moderato. Furthermore, the organ first appears toward the end of the Poco adagio, meaning that it figures as a “conclusion” for both of the halves. That said, the organ dominates over that conclusion, particularly towards then end, when it takes the “pedal point” motif literally! In his opening remarks, Denève made it a point to observe that the symphony had the same key structure as Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 67 (fifth) symphony in C minor. As far as I am concerned, however, any connection to Beethoven would have been incidental, if not accidental!

Nevertheless, the performance was a solid one, reminding me that occasional visits to Opus 78 tend to leave me in an upbeat mood. Sadly, this was not the case for the Poulenc concerto. Latry seemed to have difficulty finding the right way to balance his instrument against the ensemble. As a result, the clarity of the instrument was significantly more muddled than it would be during the performance of the Saint-Saëns symphony. This was a personal disappointment, since I have enjoyed Poulenc’s concerto ever since I first encountered it in my student days.

Ironically, Beethoven’s presence was much more evident at the beginning of the program. Unfortunately, Connesson never quite knew what to do with that presence. Once “Flammenschrift” established the “fatal fifth” gesture, the composer did little more than work it to death. Granted, the performance took only ten minutes; but that was five minutes too long (at least)!

Twentieth-Century Cello Sonatas from Paris

Basile Ausländer and Jansen Ryser on the cover of their debut album

This coming Friday will see the release of a somewhat delayed debut album of two laureates of the Crescendo Young Swiss Artists. The performers are cellist Basile Ausländer and Jansen Ryser at the piano keyboard. Their “program” presents three sonatas for cellos and piano by composers that were trained in Paris during the first half of the last century. The first of these is Romanian George Enescu. The other two were French, both members of “Les Six,” Arthur Honegger and Francis Poulenc.

There is often a tendency for every new century to regard its predecessor as a distant past. Nevertheless, all three of these composers seem to have dodged that dismissal to at least a moderate extent. Closest to home, so to speak, is Enescu, whose string octet in C major was performed by musicians of the San Francisco Symphony, whose Chamber Music recital took place this past February 1. Similarly, violinist Agustin Hadelich made his debut with San Francisco Performances (SFP) as a soloist in the Shenson Great Artists & Ensemble Series this past March with a program that included Poulenc’s only sonata for violin and piano. Finally, Honegger’s 1920 sonatina (which he dedicated to Darius Milhaud) was performed at Mills College in October of 2020.

I must confess that I have had a soft spot for Les Six for some time. On the other hand, Enescu was given utterly terrible treatment by my high school music teacher (who clearly knew little more than what had appeared in the textbook he used). As a result, it took me quite some time to get to know not only that composer’s spirit but also the Romanian context in which that spirit had been cultivated. Nevertheless, in the “immediate present,” I found the performances by Ausländer and Ryser to be as refreshing as they were to the many “marks on paper” that they confronted.

Those (like myself) that feel that the last century still deserves some respect are likely to find the “program” that these performers prepared an engaging encounter.

Agustin Hadelich Makes his SFP Debut

Agustin Hadelich and his accompanist, Francesco Piemontesi (from the SFP Web page for last night’s performance)

Last night violinist Agustin Hadelich made his debut with San Francisco Performances (SFP) as a soloist in the Shenson Great Artists & Ensemble Series. Many readers may recall having seen him in Davies Symphony Hall, where he made his last visit in November of 2023, when he was the soloist in the San Francisco Symphony performance of Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 53 violin concerto in A minor. For his visit to Herbst Theatre, he was joined at the piano by Francesco Piemontesi for a program structured around three sonatas for violin and piano. In “order of appearance,” the composers were Claude Debussy, Francis Poulenc, and César Franck.

Each of these sonatas was preceded by a sharply contrasting composition. Debussy’s sonata followed “Récit du chant de l’hymne précédent” (recitative on the melody of the preceding hymn), composed in the late seventeenth century by Nicolas de Grigny, organist at the Notre-Dame de Reims cathedral. Poulenc was preceded by Jean-Philippe Rameau with a selection from his Pièces de Clavecin en Concert collection. Finally, the concluding Franck sonata followed the most recent work on the program, a set of three short pieces by György Kurtág composed in 1979.

It would be fair to say that the overall breadth of the program was balanced by the depth of each of the sonatas. The fact is that the only thing the sonatas had in common was an association with the history of French music. That said, Hadelich knew how to evoke just the right rhetorical interpretations for each of those sonatas; and, where Poulenc was concerned, Piemontesi seemed to be enjoying himself as much as Hadelich. Taken as a whole, this was a “no frills” program; but both soloist and accompanist knew exactly how to mine engaging rhetoric from each of the selections. Just as engaging was the encore entitled simply “C.” This was an arrangement for violin and piano of the first piece in Poulenc’s vocal work, Deux poèmes de Louis Aragon.

Hadelich always gives the impression that he enjoys visiting San Francisco, and I am glad to acknowledge that I have enjoyed every one of my encounters with him.

Bridge Releases Album of Cellist Louise Dubin

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Bandcamp Web page)

The beginning of this month saw the release by Bridge Records of the album Passages, a diversity of selections performed by cellist Louise Dubin, joined by another cellist, Julia Bruskin, and pianist Spencer Meyer. The subtitle of the album is “French Cello Works;” and it continues her interest in the music of Auguste Franchomme, which had previously been recorded on the Delos album The Franchomme Project, on which she also performed with Bruskin. The other composers represented on the album are (in order of appearance) Charles Koechlin, Gabriel Fauré, Frédéric Chopin (piano music arranged for cello and piano by Franchomme), Francis Poulenc (arranged by Maurice Gendron), Philippe Hersant, and Claude Debussy.

Most listeners will probably find this album a journey of discovery. Dubin saved the most familiar for the last, Debussy’s only sonata for cello and piano. Some readers may also recognize Franchomme’s name from when cellist Camille Thomas played his arrangements of Chopin for a San Francisco Performances recital in April of 2024. Dubin’s album includes another such arrangement, this time of the seventh the twelve études collected in Opus 25.

While it would be fair to say that Dubin is not shy about diversity, I found that both the selections for this new album and how they were ordered began to feel like “one thing after another” after the first few tracks. This is not to say that her technique lacks expressiveness. Nevertheless, after listening to the album several times, I found that my attention began to drift somewhere around the middle of the fourteen tracks. Perhaps if I sat in the audience for one of Dubin’s recitals, I would have come away with more positive impressions.

Francis Poulenc as Composer and Performer

Cover of the album being discussed, with a reminder of the other “centenary” event (from its Amazon.com Web page)

Following up on last month’s “centenary tribute” album of recordings of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, this coming Friday will see a release by SOMM Recordings of an album of piano performances by the French composer Francis Poulenc. The full title of the album is Poulenc plays Poulenc and Satie, and Poulenc plays piano on all 34 tracks. Twelve of the tracks are solo performances of Satie’s music. The solo performances of his own music are complemented by his two-piano concerto in D minor at the beginning, with Jacques Février on the other piano, and the “Aubade” for piano and eighteen instruments at the conclusion. As usual, Amazon.com has created a Web page for processing pre-orders.

During my high school days, when i would escape the suburbs to go to concerts in Philadelphia, the concept of modernism tended to be embodied by the six French composers that had been inspired by Erik Satie, known, appropriately enough, as Les Six. Poulenc was one of the best-known of this group, as was Darius Milhaud. Georges Auric was probably better known for film scores, Arthur Honegger was more talked-about than listened-to, Germaine Tailleferre was known primarily as the only female composer in the group, and these days Louis Durey is all but forgotten.

It was only as an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that I first encountered a professor that was dismissive of Les Six in favor of the First Viennese School of Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern. Now I am in a new century; and, during his tenure as Music Director for the San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas was never shy about his enthusiasm for the First Viennese School. On the other hand, my encounters with Les Six during the first quarter of this new century have been few and far between.

As a result, I found that I was approaching the new SOMM album as a trip down memory lane. That included Poulenc the pianist as well as Poulenc the composer. Indeed, the Columbia album I purchased of his sextet for piano and wind quintet had him performing with the first-chair wind players of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Amazon.com does not seem to know about this recording, but Discogs has a Web page from which four copies of the original vinyl are available for purchase.

Thus, when I approached Poulenc plays Poulenc and Satie, Poulenc was already quite familiar to me as both composer and performer. Indeed, over the course of my writing on this site, while neither of the composers has received a generous amount of “column space,” attention to Satie has been a little more than a third of attention to Poulenc. Nevertheless, I think it would be fair to say that the attentiveness of the “disciple” to the “master” makes for a listening experience that deserves more attention than at least some of the more recent recording of Satie’s piano music. (Since I know nothing about Poulenc as a teacher, I have no idea whether his knowledge of Satie was passed on to his pupils.)

These days I am more attentive to Satie than I am to Poulenc. Nevertheless, I appreciate the extent to which the latter had been informed by the former, so to speak. The first day of this month marked another “centenary” event: Satie died on July 1, 1925. As of this writing, this Poulenc album has been my only encounter with that event. One would have thought that the anniversary would have prompted more interest.

The Kanneh-Mason Duo in Davies Last Night

Sheku Kanneh-Mason (photograph by Ollie Ali, courtesy of SFS)

Last night saw the final Great Performers Series recital to be presented by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) this season in Davies Symphony Hall. The recitalist was cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, who made his SFS Orchestra Series debut almost exactly a year ago, when he was the soloist in a performance of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 107, the first of his two cello concertos. For his SFS Great Performers debut, he was accompanied at the piano by his sister Isata.

The first half of the program presented two cello sonatas separated by a little less than a century. The program began with Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 45, his first cello sonata in B-flat major. This was coupled with another “first cello sonata,” Gabriel Fauré’s Opus 109 in D minor. The remaining sonata concluded the second half of the program, Francis Poulenc’s only sonata for cello and piano. This was composed in 1948; and, since the Mendelssohn sonata was composed in 1838, the program offered roughly a century of sonatas. These were complemented by the one recent work on the program, “Tor Mordôn,” composed by Natalie Klouda in 2024.

As expected, this was a radical shift from the rhetorical stances of the sonata selections. I have noticed that many recent compositions tend to establish their identities through unique sonorities, as well as thematic material. The second movement of “Tor Mordôn” involved a fair amount of snap pizzicato work, which was definitely consistent with the “Con fuoco” tempo marking. Nevertheless, when taken as a whole, the music did little to seize attention, reminding me of my composition teacher, who always criticized his pupils for “noodling.”

Sadly, the more traditional offerings did not fare much better. Both of the sonatas preceding the intermission came across as long-winded. Mind you, Mendelssohn tended to revel in outbursts of enthusiasm. One could sense that through the different perspectives of his sonata’s three movements, but each of them went on for longer than even attentive patience could endure. Ironically, the enthusiasm that Poulenc brought to his sonata came across as little more than an outpouring of notes.

Neither of the two encores was announced. The first sounded like an arrangement of one of the orchestral works by Manuel de Falla. The other sounded like more Mendelssohn. Neither left me with an urge to learn more about them.

Duo Gazzana Release New (and Diverse) Album

Cover of the album being discussed

I am not sure how the latest ECM New Series album of performances by Duo Gazzana came to my attention, since I have not been able to associate it with any recent entries in my Inbox! This should not be a surprise, since that album has no title other than the listening of the five contributing composers: Francis Poulenc, William Walton, Luigi Dallapiccola, Alfred Schnittke, and Valentin Silvestrov. (This is not their “order of appearance” that I encountered when I downloaded the tracks!)

That said, I have now listened to the album several times; and I am delighted to be able to add it to my library. When I last wrote about performances by the Italian sisters Natascia Gazzana (violin) and Raffaella Gazzana (piano), I gave them “high marks for eclecticism!” Those familiar with all five of the above composers will probably agree with me that the duo’s commitment to eclecticism is as strong as ever. In this case, however, I would further argue that there is also a generous share of wit across all five of the contributing composers.

Mind you, while Schnittke is definitely capable of tongue-in-cheek rhetoric, his tongue tends to be a forked one! Silvestrov’s wit, on the other hand, is one of twists and turns (although it is impressive how many he can pack into a mere five minutes)! Poulenc’s sonata, on the other hand, is basically a Gallic romp, which I have known (and loved) for more than several years. My impressions of Walton’s toccata, lasting about a quarter of an hour, tended to remind me of when I learned that he once conducted the Hoffnung Festival Orchestra with a fly swatter! The final track is Dallapiccola’s “Tartiniana seconda,” which I probably would appreciate more were my knowledge of Tartini more thorough!

My overall impression is that I was entertained by this album, but it was an entertainment that activated a generous number of my “little grey cells” (with apologies to Agatha Christie)!

Naama Liany’s Old First Concerts Recital

The cover of Naama Liany’s Daydream album, which includes most of the selections she performed (from The Origin Music Group Web page for the album)

Late this afternoon, mezzo Naama Liany finally (after a month’s delay) brought her Daydream program to Old First Presbyterian Church for the final Old First Concerts program of the month. She performed works by five twentieth-century composers setting texts in four languages. The program began with Francis Poulenc’s Banalités, drawing upon five poems by Guillaume Apollinaire. This was followed by “Heimlich zur Nacht,” taken from the radio opera The Piano Blue composed by Albena Petrovic-Vratchanska. The first half of the program then concluded with the first and last songs from the collection Combat del somni (dream combat) by Federico Mompou.

The second half of the program was “all American.” It began with the five songs in Samuel Barber’s Opus 41 Despite and Still. This was followed by the wittier I Hate Music! by Leonard Bernstein. Liany then took two encores, neither of which were announced. I drew a blank on the first one, but she wrapped things up by going back to Bernstein with his operetta Candide. He wrote his own lyrics for the song “I Am Easily Assimilated,” given tango treatment.

Liany’s delivery was consistently solid. She knew just how to tune her disposition to the semantics behind each of her selections. She kept any talk to a minimum, allowing the full panoply of her selections to speak for themselves. Mind you, not all of her selections were my personal favorites. Nevertheless, for all of my misgivings about Bernstein, I was more than a little impressed by how she nailed her sense of pitch during the “I Hate Music!” song. I was also amused to hear the voice of her pianist Christopher Koelzer, covering for the chorus response (so to speak) in “I Am Easily Assimilated.”

Sundays have been consistently busy for me over the course of this new year, but I was glad to settle down in front of my television late this afternoon to view the Old First Concerts livestream.

Midori’s Return to SFP: “Two Centuries” Program

Violinist Midori (photograph by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, courtesy of SFP)

Last night violinist Midori returned to Herbst Theatre for her eleventh appearance as a San Francisco Performances (SFP) recitalist. She made her SFP debut in November of 1998, and her last visits took place a little over two years ago. On that occasion, she gave a complete account of the unaccompanied sonatas and partitas of Johann Sebastian Bach over the course of two recitals at the beginning of February of 2023.

For her latest visit she prepared a program of music from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, performing with pianist Özgür Aydin. The selections were “divided chronologically” by the intermission with Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms in the first half and Francis Poulenc and Maurice Ravel in the second. (Note that the division was geographic, as well as chronological.)

The “core” of the program consisted of three-movement sonatas on either side of the intermission by Brahms and Poulenc, respectively. The contrast could not have been more striking. In spite of the Vivace ma non troppo tempo marking, the Brahms sonata began on a wistful note, which became more and more introspective as the performance progressed. Poulenc, on the other hand, was downright frolicsome, with an opening movement that gave the violin strings such a workout that Midori had to retune before moving on to the second.

The program began with Robert Schumann’s Opus 102 Five Pieces in Folk Style, which was originally composed for cello and piano. I have always enjoyed this music, since it struck me that it was one of those few occasions was the composer was not afraid to have a little fun. While MIdori’s facial expressions were focused, one could still appreciate that she not only acknowledge the composer’s sense of humor but also could have a little fun of her own. Far more serious was her approach to Ravel, which began with Lucien Garban’s arrangement of the composer’s vocal setting of the Hebrew Kaddish prayer. This sacred undertaking was followed by the far more secular (if not downright raucous) “Tzigane.” The evening concluded with a single encore, which, sadly, was not announced.

Nevertheless, the occasion was a satisfying one. Midori’s performances were as expressive as ever, and her chemistry with Aydin was consistently satisfying. Over the course of the years, I have grown accustomed to her “no nonsense” approach to performing. Nevertheless, that attitude never impedes the expressiveness she brings to her interpretations. Last night’s return was definitely a welcome one.

Schwabacher: Two Vocalists and Two Pianists

Tenor Michael John Butler and Baritone Olivier Zerouali (courtesy of the Merola Opera Program and the San Francisco Opera Center)

The annual Schwabacher Recital Series, presented jointly by the San Francisco Opera (SFO) Center and the Merola Opera Program, will continue in a little less than two week’s time. This month’s program will present tenor Michael John Butler and baritone Olivier Zerouali; and it will be the second of the three programs presented this season. Accompaniment will be provided by two pianists: Julian Garvue and Ji Youn Lee.

The program will present four song cycles. The oldest (and probably most familiar) of these will be Robert Schumann’s Opus 48 Dichterliebe (a poet’s love), setting sixteen of the poems that Heinrich Heine collected in his Lyrisches Intermezzo. Francis Poulenc will be represented by two cycles. The program will begin with Le Travail du Peintre (the work of the painter), providing “musical portraits” of the artists Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Paul Klee, Joan Miró, and Jacques Villon. The other cycle collects six songs under the title Calligrammes. The remaining cycle on the program will be I Was There: Five Poems of Walt Whitman by Lee Hoiby. The program will conclude with the last three of the four songs that Richard Strauss collected for his Opus 27.

This performance will take place in the Barbro Osher Recital Hall on Wednesday, March 19, beginning at 7:30 p.m. This venue is on the eleventh floor of the Bowes Center, which is located at 200 Van Ness Avenue. General admission will be $30. Tickets may be purchased online through an event page on the San Francisco Opera Web site. Note that wheelchair accessible seating is not an option. The telephone number for the Box Office is 864-3330. In addition, subject to availability, student rush tickets will go on sale at 7 p.m. at the reduced rate of $15. There is a limit of two tickets per person, and valid identification must be shown.

Midori to Return to SFP with West Coast Premiere

Violinist Midori (from the SFP event page, photograph by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders)

In a little over a week’s time, violinist Midori will return to San Francisco to present her latest recital program for San Francisco Performances (SFP). Her accompanist for this concert will be pianist Özgür Aydin. The program will conclude with the West Coast Premiere performance of “Resonances in Sprit,” which was composed for her by the young Che Buford, who is also a violinist.

All of the preceding works on the program will be by familiar composers from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The program will begin with Johannes Brahms’ Opus 78, the first of his three violin sonatas (not counting the collaborative “F-A-E Sonata”) in the key of G major. This will be followed by Francis Poulenc’s only violin sonata (FP 119), which he composed in memory of the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca. The remaining two works on the program will both be by Maurice Ravel. “Tzigane” was originally composed for violin and piano (but with the option of a luthéal attachment to evoke the sonorities of a cimbalom). “Kaddish,” on the other hand, was originally the first of the Two Hebrew Songs, setting an Aramaic text for the vocalist; but it was subsequently arranged for violin and piano by Lucien Garban.

As is usually the case for SFP events, this program will be performed in Herbst Theatre, beginning at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 11. The entrance to Herbst Theatre 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 $85 (premium Orchestra and front and center Dress Circle), $75 (remainder of Orchestra, all Side Boxes, and center rear Dress Circle), and $65 (remaining Dress Circle and Balcony). They may be purchased through an SFP secure Web page.

Dynamite Guitars to Continue with Marko Topchii

Guitarist Marko Topchii (courtesy of the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts)

The Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts will present its next recital in the Dynamite Guitars season at the beginning of next month. This will be a solo performance by Ukrainian virtuoso Marko Topchii. According to my archives, those interested in Topchii’s work have had several opportunities to experience it through video. This site accounted for two of those videos when “live” performances were being curtailed during the COVID pandemic. The first video was recorded in St. Andrew’s Church in Kiev with a choral prelude by Johann Sebastian Bach at one end of the “time line” and a suite by Agustín Barrios at the other. The second was presented in the Live from St. Mark’s series of concerts filmed at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. Last month Topchii appeared on the latest OMNI on-Location video as one of the five prize winners of this year’s Tino Andersen International Guitar Festival.

[1/30, 9:05 a.m.: specific compositions added:

Topchii’s repertoire is an expansive one. Eleven composers will contribute to next month’s recital. Details have not yet been finalized; but the contributing composers will be (in alphabetical order) as follows, beginning with more from Bach (BWV 826 partita in C minor, arranged by Triatan Manoukian) and Barrios (“Un Sueño en la Floresta”) and also including Leo Brouwer (“La Gran Sarabanda”) John Dowland (“Chromatic Fantasy”), Arnaud Dumond (“Comme un Hommage à Ravel”), Mauro Giuliani (Opus 49 set of six variations), Frederic Hand (“Undercurtrents”), Graham Koehne (“A Closed World of Fine Feelings and Grand Design”), Francis Poulenc (“Sarabande”), Maurice Ravel (the first movements of the piano Sonatine), and Joaquín Rodrigo (“Toccata”).]

This will be one of the three recitals of the season hosted by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. It will take place in the Barbro Osher Recital Hall, which is on the top floor of the new Bowes Center at 200 Van Ness Avenue. The performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 1. Admission will be $60 for all tickets, and they may be purchased online through a City Box Office event page.

California Bach Society: The Holiday Program

“The Nativity and the Adoration of the Magi,” painted by Pseudo-Jacopino di Francesco, probably between 1325 and 1330

A little over a week ago the California Bach Society announced the plans for its holiday concert. Derek Tam will serve as guest conductor for this performance. The program will be framed by two settings of the “Ave Maria” prayer. It will begin with a monodic medieval chant setting and conclude with a much richer arrangement by twentieth-century composer Franz Biebl. These “extremes” will be bridged by a chronological unfolding of composers: Michael Praetorius, Tomás Luis de Victoria, Heinrich Schütz, Benjamin Britten, and Francis Poulenc. A Web page has been created with notes for the entire program.

The San Francisco performance of this program will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, December 13. The venue will be the St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church, which is located near Potrero Hill at 500 De Haro Street. Individual tickets are available for general admission at $40 with discounted rates for seniors and students. A Web page has been created for such tickets, as well as for three-concert subscriptions, which will also include From Tallis to Tavener and Brilliant Bach.  Doors will open at 7 p.m.

Steven Isserlis’ “Anniversaries” Cello Recital

Yesterday afternoon in Herbst Theatre, cellist Steven Isserlis presented a recital program for Chamber Music San Francisco entitled 2024 Anniversaries. This year marks the centennial of the deaths in 1924 of two major composers that “transitioned” from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. The first of these was Ferruccio Busoni, whose “Kultaselle,” a set of ten variations on a Finnish folk song, began the program. The second was Gabriel Fauré, represented by his Opus 109 (first) cello sonata, composed in the key of D minor. (Fauré was also the “encore composer,” with the selection of his Opus 78 “Sicilienne,” which was later incorporated into his Opus 80 incidental music for Maurice Maeterlinck’s play Pelléas et Mélisande.)

An arpeggione built in 1968 (not performed by Isserlis yesterday afternoon) with its guitar-like frets (from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license)

The program also acknowledged works composed in 1824 by Franz Schubert and in 1924 by Ernest Bloch. The nineteenth-century offering was Schubert’s D. 821 sonata in A minor, originally composed for the arpeggione (a “hybrid” instrument, which was basically a bowed guitar). Bloch was represented by his three-movement suite Pieces from Jewish Life. The remaining work on the program was the final selection, Francis Poulenc’s only cello sonata.

As usual, Isserlis’ performance was as informed as it was spirited. His energetic expressiveness never fails to draw the attentive listener into the “engine room” of every work he selects for performance. The result is a perfectly balanced account of not only the “big picture” but also the many subtle “brush strokes” that bring the picture into being. That capacity to express detail was, as in the past, enhanced through the long-term chemistry that has emerged between him and his accompanist at the piano, Connie Shih.

Isserlis also deserves credit for his chemistry with his audience. The good news is that he does not try to account for each selection with an introductory mini-lecture. Rather, he homes in on a few specific items, which he feels are worth sharing. These inevitably provide useful orientation for a listener encountering a composition for the first time. My guess is that those familiar with the cello repertoire were in a minority yesterday, but they seemed consistently as attentive to everything that Isserlis presented as the more “seasoned” listeners were. Such chemistry is ultimately in the hands of the performer, and Isserlis could not have handled it better.

SFCO to Present Program of Chamber Music

Flutist Stacey Pelinka, one of the instrumentalists to contribute to the chamber music selections on the program to be performed (courtesy of SFCO)

The title of the next program to be presented by the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra (SFCO) will be Quintets and Sextets. In other words, members of the ensemble will gather in different combinations to perform five selections of chamber music. The program will be curated by Principal Conductor Jory Fankuchen, who will host the concert with interviews with the performers, along with his own offerings of fascinating musical tidbits.

The program will begin with Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 77, his second string quintet in G major. That quintet will be complemented by Jennifer Higdon’s wind quintet entitled “Autumn Music.” The second half of the program will begin with three of the movements from Alfredo Casella’s Opus 70, his Six Studies collection. These have been arranged by P. Lemberg; and, like the first name, the instrumentation has not yet been specified! This will be followed by the sextet that Francis Poulenc composed for wind quintet and piano. The final selection will be Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 34, his “Overture on Hebrew Themes,” which takes a piano quintet (string quartet and piano) and adds a clarinet.

The San Francisco performance of this program will begin at 7:30 p.m. in St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, located at 1111 O’Farrell Street, just west of the corner of Franklin Street. There will be no charge for admission. However, reservations will be appreciated and may be enabled through an Eventbrite event page.

Imaginative Approach to Cello-Piano Recital

Last night cellist Jay Campbell returned to Herbst Theatre for the second program in the San Francisco Performances Great Artists and Ensembles series. This served as a follow-up to the first program in the series, featuring violinist Miranda Cuckson, which took place exactly one week ago. Campbell was joined by pianist Conor Hanick, who devoted half of the program to solo compositions by Franz Schubert and György Ligeti. These were framed by the duo performances, the first being “gretchen am spinnrade” by Eric Wubbels and the final offering being Francis Poulenc’s sonata for cello and piano. Taken as a whole, the program served up a prodigious variety of emotional dispositions.

The duo decidedly hit the ground running with “gretchen am spinnrade.” It did not take long for even a casual listener to recognize that this music had nothing to do with either Schubert or Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The composer himself provided his own description of the music, distilled down to a single sentence: “A manic, hounded piece, alternating relentless motoric circuits with plateaus of regular, ‘idling’ motion.” One could almost associate the music with the dysfunctional world of RoboCop, where the motto is “I’d buy that for a dollar!”

Dysfunctional or not, “gretchen am spinnrade” was definitely music that forced the listener to sit up and take notice. Both Campbell and Hanick seemed to be expending all of their energy for the entire evening on this one dynamo of a composition. At the very least, one would say that this was music that could not possibly be ignored. Personally, I had no trouble being drawn into its dispositional mix of the dynamic and the diabolic, suggesting that, in Goethe’s world, this music had far more to do with Mephistopheles than with Gretchen. For that matter, I would be only too happy for an opportunity to listen to it a second time.

The second half of the program consisted entirely of the Poulenc sonata. The composer began work on this sonata in 1940 but was interrupted by the German occupation. It was completed in 1948; but a corrected edition was published in 1953 (presumably with the composer’s approval). This is very much music for high spirits, meaning that it could not have been a better complement to the program’s opening selection. Back in the early Sixties, Poulenc was recognized as a major composer; but that reputation receded very quickly not long after his death in 1963. The good news is that both Campbell and Hanick knew how to tap into that spirited rhetoric. The sonata may not be “back in vogue;” but, given my own background, I found it more than a little comforting to listen to this music some 60 years after the composer’s death.

Connor Hanick (photography by Laura Desberg, courtesy of San Francisco Performances)

If the duo performances proceeded from present to past, Hanick’s solo offerings took the opposite direction. He began with the last of the four impromptus in both of the Schubert collections. D. 899 and D. 935. Both were high-paced compositions, providing the pianist with the best possible opportunity to display dexterity.

He then shifted over to the recent past with three of György Ligeti’s études, two from his first book (“Fanfares” and “Arc-en-ciel”) and one from the second (“L'escalier du diable”). (The English translations for the second and third études are “rainbow” and “the Devil’s staircase.”) To some extent one may say that all of Ligeti’s études have a diabolical streak, and Hanick’s interpretations tended to reflect that position. Personally, I was a bit saddened to realize how long it had been since I had heard any of Ligeti’s études either in recital or on recording. As a result. I was more than a little elated by Hanick’s juxtaposition of Ligeti with Schubert.

Now I find myself curious as to how Hanick would plan a full-evening recital!

An Abundance of Guitarists at St. Mark’s

Last night St. Mark’s Lutheran Church hosted the fourth recital in the 2023/2024 Dynamite Guitars series of concerts, presented by the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts. The title of the program was Maestros of 50 Oak Street, an acknowledgement of the impressive Guitar Faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, whose primary address is 50 Oak Street. The four guitarists to perform last night were (in alphabetical order) Sergio Assad, David Tanenbaum, Richard Savino, and Marc Teicholz. All of them performed solo compositions, Assad played a duo with Teicholz, and all four concluded the program with two selections from the Filmaginaires collection of short works by Roland Dyens. In addition, Savino’s set included a duo with violinist Scott Moore. The program was also given an “overture” presented by the SFCM Guitar Youth Orchestra and members of the SFCM Guitar Community Ensemble. Scott Cmiel conducted a performance of “Bluezilian,” composed by Clarice Assad (Sergio’s daughter).

This made for an evening longer than most guitar recitals. Presumably, “Bluezilian” was intended to draw a generous audience of “friends and family;” and it succeeded in doing so. Sadly, after that selection was performed, there was a noticeable exodus after all the family members had filled their telephones with photographs and videos. Fortunately, there was still a good crowd that had showed up for the 50 Oak Street players.

Tanenbaum assembled an engaging set of works by composers with little (if any) knowledge of the guitar. They were Manuel de Falla, Francis Poulenc, and Thomas Adès. The Falla selection was taken from his Homenajes suite, originally composed for orchestra. The second movement was a memorial for Claude Debussy given the subtitle “Elegia de la guitarra;” and Falla prepared his own arrangement for guitar. He also acknowledged Debussy with a fragment from “Soirée dans Grenade” (evening in Granada), the second of the three compositions in Debussy’s Estampes collection. The Adès selection, on the other had, was originally composed for his opera The Exterminating Angel.

In that “geographical” context Assad focused his set on Brazil with two selections by Luiz Bonfá and a samba by Jacob Bittencourt. Teicholz took the Opus 55 piano suite by Joaquín Turina, entitled Danzas Gitanas (gypsy dances), and arranged the movements for solo guitar. This was a significant undertaking with highly satisfying results. I was also left wondering whether Stephen Sondheim had appropriated the “Dance of seduction” movement when he was working on Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

The only disappointment was Savino, who trashed the selections in the printed program and mumbled his way through announcing the alternatives. Nevertheless, his duo performance with Moore based on the “Folia” theme was engaging to the extent that some of the variations on the repeated bass line may have been improvised. Taken as a whole, the full set of guitar selections left much to occupy the attentive listener, who probably would have sustained the guitar performances more attentively had the “Bluezilian” overture been eliminated from the program.

Poulenc Trio to Visit SFSU This Sunday

Back when I was writing for Examiner.com, I found that San Francisco State University (SFSU) was a desirable venue for free performances of music. Thanks to the Morrison Chamber Music Center, I found it particularly easy to encounter chamber music performances, many of which involved visiting artists presented by the Morrison Artist Series. In 2020 the Center received a generous gift from the estate of Clement Galante, and that series was renamed “The Jane H. Galante Series of the May Treat Morrison Foundation.” Ever since then, encountering word about chamber music performances has become a sometime thing.

Poulenc Trio members Bryan Young, Irina Kaplan Lande, and Alexander Vvedenskiy (from the event page for the recital being discussed)

I offer that paragraph as an apology for what is practically a last-minute announcement of a recital taking place this coming Sunday. The performers will be the members of the Poulenc Trio, whose members are pianist Irina Kaplan Lande, bassoonist Bryan Young, and oboist Alexander Vvedenskiy. Their name is based on the fact that Francis Poulenc composed a trio for that particular combination of instruments in 1926, and that trio will be the opening selection on the program that the ensemble has prepared. This is the twentieth anniversary of the trio, and they are celebrating the occasion with an extensive touring schedule. The program will also include the D minor “Trio pathétique,” which Mikhail Glinka originally composed for clarinet, bassoon, and piano, as well as an F major trio sonata by George Frideric Handel whose specific HWV number has not been provided. The one recent work on the program will be “Explain Yourself,” which Viet Cuong composed in 2019.

Two of the works on the program will be products of arrangement. The opening Poulenc trio will be followed by a selection of that composer’s songs, realized as strictly instrumental music by Heinrich Zöllner. At the other end the program will conclude with music inspired by Gioacchino Rossini’s opera Semiramide. The nineteenth-century French oboist Charles Triébert and his bassoonist compatriot Eugène Louis-Marie Jancourt were known for composing “fantasies-concertantes” for the oboe and bassoon. One of their sources was Semiramide, and Jancourt subsequently published the duo as his Opus 48.

The performance of this program will begin at 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 16. The venue will be Knuth Hall, which is in the Creative Arts Building at SFSU at 1600 Holloway Avenue, a short walk from the SFSU Muni stop at the corner of 19th Avenue and Holloway. Tickets are free but advance registration is highly desirable. Reservations may be made through the event page for this concert. As usual, there will be a pre-concert event, which will begin at 2 p.m., also in Knuth Hall. In addition, the trio will conduct residency activities at the SFSU School of Music on Monday, April 17.

Two Guitar Quintets from Two Centuries

Quatuor Van Kuijk members Nicolas Van Kuijk, Sylvain Favre-Bulle, Anthony Kondo, and Emmanuel François (photograph by Svend Andersen, courtesy of San Francisco Performances)

Last night in Herbst Theatre, San Francisco Performances presented, in conjunction with the Dynamite Guitar season created by the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts, the second of the five programs in its 2022–2023 Guitar Series. Guitarist Sean Shibe, born in Edinburgh in 1992, is currently touring the United States along with Quatuor Van Kuijk, a string quartet founded in Paris in 2012 by violinists Nicolas Van Kuijk and Sylvain Favre-Bulle, violist Emmanuel François, and cellist Anthony Kondo. All five of them performed two guitar quintets, one at the end of each half of the program.

The first of these was the so-called “Fandango” quintet composed by Luigi Boccherini. The program concluded with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Opus 143 quintet. The quartet members also began the evening with a performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s final string quartet in F minor. Mendelssohn died two months after completing the work, and it was published posthumously as his Opus 80. In addition, Shibe performed three short solos composed, respectively, by Thomas Adés, Manuel de Falla, and Francis Poulenc, prior to the Castelnuovo-Tedesco quintet.

Taken as a whole, this was a low-key program; but Herbst provided a conducive setting for the intimacy of all of the offerings. This was particularly the case with the two guitar quintets. In both of the performances, Shibe fit comfortably into the intimate “conversations” one usually encounters in a string quartet performance. As a group they captured and affectionately presented the many Hispanic tropes; and, where the Castelnuovo-Tedesco quintet was concerned, those familiar with the score may have wondered if Shibe was channeling Andrés Segovia, for whom the quintet was originally composed. A similar sense of intimacy pervaded Shibe’s solo offerings.

In that context the decision to begin with the Mendelssohn quartet felt a bit out of place. Perhaps the quartet players felt that they should begin on the “dark side,” after which the sun would shine on the rest of the program. Certainly, the intensity they brought to Opus 80 made the attentive listener sit up and take notice. From that point of view, the sunny dispositions of the remainder of the program may have felt more welcome.

Francis Poulenc’s Opera of Devout Anonymity

Yesterday afternoon San Francisco Opera (SFO) concluded its five-performance run of Francis Poulenc’s only full-evening opera, Dialogues des Carmélites (dialogues of the Carmelites). Having seen to the basics of the production in my account of the opening night, I wanted to discuss an element of context, which distinguishes Poulenc’s efforts (since he also provided his own libretto) from those of just about any other opera, that of personal identity.

That element is strongest in the protagonist, Blanche de la Force (soprano Heidi Stober). The Reign of Terror has placed her aristocratic family under a threat that can only be diverted by leaving France. Blanche, on the other hand, sacrifices her comfortable upbringing by seeking admission to the Carmelite Order in Compiègne. The casting for this opera accounts for seventeen nuns, whose company she joins. As the narrative unfolds, we begin to appreciate a tension between her own sense of identify and the anonymity of the convent itself.

Poulenc himself seems to have appreciated this context of anonymity. It is not that individuals never address each other by name. Rather, the setting is one in which such ordinary conversation does not take place. The nuns go about their business of service attending only to their practices and not to each other. Even the most attentive viewers of this opera may be forgiven for losing track of Blanche on the stage as the narrative unfolds.

The one exception is the Prioress of the order, Madame de Croissy, sung by mezzo Michaela Schuster. The first act concludes with her death in the convent’s infirmary. Olivier Py took a particularly imaginative approach to this scene, providing the audience with an overhead view of the Prioress:

photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO

Some readers may recall a similar approach to an episode from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s opera The Queen of Spades, which SFO presented in the spring of 2005. In that case the view was of the old Countess in her bed, looking even more haggard than usual because, for that scene, she was depicted by a Lunatique Fantastique puppet.

The only intermission for Poulenc’s opera took place after the death of the Prioress. The remaining two acts were performed separated only by a short pause. This made for a symmetry that may have guided Poulenc’s approach to the narrative. The death of the Prioress is reflected by the guillotining of the Carmelite nuns in the final scene. Each of these episodes assumes a transcendent character in which the pain of life on earth is discarded with the admission to Heaven. (In that final scene Py conceived a representation of each nun’s soul entering Heaven, which turned out to be remarkably effective, if not reassuring after the horrors of the guillotine.)

In spire of its origins as a film, this is a narrative that does not lend itself readily to narration. Perhaps one of the advantages of opera is that music can assume the duties of narration when words are not readily available. Poulenc seems to have recognized the need for just the right interplay between music and words, resulting in a dramatic experience like no other we are likely to encounter.