Noe Music to Begin Season with Wind Octet

If regular readers do not already know by now, I have to confess that keeping up with Noe Music events is, in the immortal words of Ira Gershwin, “a sometime thing.” Indeed, the only way I was able to find out about the first concert of the new season was when I encountered it on a Groupmuse Web page. To be fair, however, that is probably the most useful Web page for those interested in attending the performance, particularly since the site monitors how many tickets are still available.

The eight members of the American Wind Soloists (from the Classical Voice Web page for this event)

The performers for this occasion will be the American Wind Soloists. This is basically a “double quartet” of performers on oboe (James Austin Smith and Kemp Jernigan), clarinet (Alan Kay and Alicia Lee), bassoon (Gina Cuffari and Eleni Katz), and horn (David Byrd-Marrow and Eric Reed). Smith is the curator of the ensemble.

This happens to be the instrumentation for the first work on the program, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 375 serenade (called “divertimento” by Noe Music) in E-flat major. The program will then conclude of a suite extracted from the music of Bedřich Smetana’s opera The Bartered Bride. Between these two selections will be Ruth Gipps’ wind octet, her Opus 65, composed 1983.

Those familiar with Noe Music probably know that most performances take place on a Sunday afternoon, beginning at 4 p.m. In this case the date will be first Sunday of next month, October 5. The venue will be the Noe Valley Ministry, located at 1021 Sanchez Street, between 23rd Street and Elizabeth Street. When purchased through the Groupmuse Web page, the fee will be $20 with a discounted rate of $10 for “Supermusers.” Alcoholic drinks will be provided, which means that attendees should not bring their own drinks. Groupmuse has classified this as a “Kid-friendly event,” and the venue is wheelchair accessible. Ticket sales through Groupmuse will close at noon on Saturday, October 4. As of this writing, 26 of 30 tickets are available.

Neave Trio Releases its Second Album of the Year

Cover of the new album being discussed (courtesy of Jensen Artists)

Readers may recall that the Neave Trio released its A Room of Her Own album this past February. Since that time, violinist Anna Williams, cellist Mikhail Veselov, and pianist Eri Nakamura have clearly kept themselves productively busy, because this Friday will see the release of their second album of the year. The title of this new album is Rooted; and, as many probably expect, Amazon.com has already created a Web page for processing pre-orders. Once again, the album has a theme, this time examining the personal lives and cultural roots (hence the title) of four distinctively different composers, all with foundations in the late nineteenth century. In “order of appearance,” those composers and their associated works are as follows:

1. Bedřich Smetana: the Opus 15 piano trio, composed in 1855 and revised in 1857
2. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: the first five selections in the 1905 Opus 59 collection, Twenty-Four Negro Melodies
3. Josef Suk: the Opus 2 “Petit Trio,” composed in 1889 with a final revision in 1891
4. Frank Martin: the three-movement “Trio sur des mélodies populaires irlandaises,” composed in 1925

The selections on this album are as diverse as the nationalities of the composers. As usual, none of the composers are unfamiliar to me. Nevertheless, as was the case with A Room of Her Own, I can say with some confidence that I never encountered any of them on a daily basis. Indeed, with the exception of their Musical Remembrances album, it would be fair to say that Neave Trio has cultivated a reputation for seeking out rarely-performed works and giving them “a place in the spotlight.” (Sarah Cahill had a similar mission with her Future is Female recordings, but Neave has less of a “gender bias!”)

During my student days, one of my favorite essays was “With Edgar Varèse in the Gobi Desert” by Henry Miller. (This is one of the chapters in The Air-Conditioned Nightmare.) Here is my favorite paragraph:

No one asks you to throw Mozart out the window. Keep Mozart. Cherish him. Keep Moses too, and Buddha and Laotse and Christ. Keep them in your heart. But make room for the others, the coming ones, the ones who are already scratching on the window-panes.

None of the four composers on this album can be classified as “the coming ones.” Nevertheless, they remind us that there is still music from the nineteenth century that continues to scratch on the window-panes! Neave’s approach to repertoire reveals a generously imaginative approach to bringing awareness to that scratching.

Dennis Russell Davies to Return to Other Minds

Dennis Russell Davies performing for Other Minds in 2022 (photograph by David Magnusson, courtesy of Other Minds)

Next month Other Minds will host a benefit recital to celebrate the 80th birthday of pianist Dennis Russell Davies. Davies will be joined by his wife, Maki Namekawa, to present a recital of solo and four-hand piano music. This will be their fifth appearance in San Francisco hosted by Other Minds.

The highlight of the program will be a four-hand arrangement of selected movements from the six-episode tone poem Má vlast (my fatherland). (The best known of those movements is frequently performed on its own: “Vitava,” the Czech name of the river Moldau.) The rest of the program will be focused primarily on the twentieth century, with compositions by Maurice Ravel, John Cage, Philip Glass, and Laurie Anderson.

Only 80 tickets will be available for this event. As of this writing, tickets may be purchased for either $70 or $100. They may be purchased through an Eventbrite Web page. The performance will begin at 8 p.m. on Friday, March 22, preceded by a dessert reception at 7 p.m. The venue will be the McCarthy Art Studio in the Mission, and the address will be provided once ticket purchase has been confirmed.

Wonhee Bae Visits San Francisco Conservatory

Violinist Wonhee Bae, pianist Helen Wu, and cellist William Laney (screen shot from last night’s streamed performance)

Last night in the Barbro Osher Recital Hall, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) presented the first Chamber Music Tuesday program of the spring term. The program was primarily a platform for guest artist Wonhee Bae, first violinist of the Esmé Quartet, who performed in three of the four selections on the program. The above photograph shows her performing Bedřich Smetana’s Opus 15 (first) piano trio with students Helen Wu at the piano and cellist William Laney. This was the only performance on the second half of the program.

The beginning of the first half saw her performing with two other students, violinist Daniel Dastoor and cellist Constantine Janello. They were joined by Viola Faculty member Dimitri Murrath in a performance of the last of Ludwig van Beethoven’s six Opus 18 string quartets, composed in the key of B-flat major. For her other selection she performed Franz Schubert’s D. 934 fantasy in C minor, accompanied by Piano Faculty member Julio Elizalde. This composition includes a set of variations on Franz Schubert’s D. 741 song, “Sei mir gegrüßt.” Thus, by way of introduction, baritone Faculty member Matthew Worth performed the song, also accompanied by Elizalde.

This was my latest encounter with a live stream from SFCM. It has been a while since my last experience; and, for the most part, most of the “speed bumps” have been resolved. Indeed, since the acoustics of the Osher space leave much to be desired, the “capture crew” did well in providing an excellent audio account, balanced by a judicious and informative sequence of camera cues. The pioneer of this video technique, Jordan Whitelaw, would call his cues while following a full score; and I came away from last night’s production feeling that he would have been more than satisfied with the SFCM production. Indeed, the video provided a visual appreciation for the talents of all the performers that might have been overlooked by those in the “physical” audience.

On the other hand, that audience had one advantage over those of us in cyberspace. They were provided with program books, which, presumably, provided useful background material about all of the works on the program (and probably the text of D. 741). Sadly, the “video audience” was not provided with a hyperlink to a PDF file (which, presumably, was used to print the program book).

A Disappointing Survey of Czech Piano Music

Czech pianist Jan Bartoš (from the Old First Concerts event page for last night’s recital)

Last night in the Old First Presbyterian Church, the 2022 San Francisco International Piano Festival presented the second of the three Old First Concerts recitals to be performed at that venue. The recitalist was Czech pianist Jan Bartoš, making his West Coast debut. The program consisted entirely of music by Czech composers.

Each half of the program began with a composition by Leoš Janáček. Bartoš opened with the piano sonata given the title “1.X.1905;” and the second half of the program began with the four-movement cycle entitled “In the Mists.” The sonata was followed by a collection of eight preludes composed by Miloslav Kabeláč, and the program concluded with the cycle of six character pieces by Bedřich Smetana entitled Sny (dreams).

There was no shortage of intensity in Bartoš’ approach to any of his selections. Sadly, those (like myself) that chose to view the live stream of the performance were deprived of the usual PDF download of the program book. (I know there was a program book because the Festival’s Artistic Director, Jeffrey LaDeur, was holding it in his hand while introducing Bartoš to the audience!)

Those unfamiliar with the opening sonata were at a particular disadvantage, because this sonata presented Janáček at his most political. On the date that serves as the sonata’s title a worker named František Pavlík was bayoneted during a rally in support for a Czech university in Brno. Similarly, each of the Kabeláč preludes had its own characteristic title. The video stream provided a list of those titles, but its appearance was too short to be meaningful to any viewers. Sadly, a movement-by-movement display of those titles seemed to be beyond the skill set of the video crew.

However, any technical difficulties were quickly forgotten during the second half of the program. For both of the selections Bartoš took a disturbingly aggressive approach to the keyboard. It goes without saying that any connotations of mist in the Janáček did not stand a chance. Granted, there are always undercurrents of intensity in Janáček’s solo piano compositions. However, Bartoš simply thundered away through the cycle’s four movements, undermining any subtleties in the composer’s rhetorical stances.

The same could be said for his approach to Smetana. There is a generous scope of diversity across those six character pieces. From a thematic point of view, the attentive listener could distinguish one from another. However, Bartoš seemed more interested in hammering away at each of the themes, rather than evoking the connotations of each selection’s title. Any sense of dreamlike qualities in his interpretation came across as merely coincidental.

That plan for last night’s program suggested that the evening would be an engaging visit to different Czech approaches to expressiveness, but Bartoš’ performance did little to account for such suggestions.

Profil “Profiles” Conductor Kirill Kondrashin

courtesy of Naxos of America

During the Fifties most Americans knew very little, if anything, about Russian conductors. Indeed, that was a time when the national mood was so paranoid that the mention of any Russian musician (with the possible exception of David Oistrakh) would open one to being suspected as a Communist sympathizer. Fortunately, all that changed in 1958 when the Soviet Union launched its first International Tchaikovsky Competition. Determined to promote the superiority of Russian musicians, the Soviet authorities had to endure the embarrassment of the first prize going to an American, the pianist Van Cliburn.

RCA Victor did not waste any time cashing in on Cliburn’s success. Shortly after Cliburn claimed his prize, they released an album of him playing the composition that won him that prize, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 23 (first) piano concerto in B-flat minor. The ensemble was listed as the “RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra,” which tended to be the generic name for a pickup group. However, Cliburn himself requested that the ensemble be led by the conductor under whom he had performed during the competition. Consequently, Kiril Kondrashin was allowed to leave Russia to make the recording in the United States, an event that was as historic as the competition itself. The resulting album became the first classical recording to go platinum; and, while Cliburn’s was the name on everyone’s lips, Americans were gradually becoming aware of the name of Russian conductor.

By 1958 Kondrashin was recognized as a major Soviet conductor, complete with a Stalin Medal that had been awarded in 1947. In 1956 he had left the Bolshoi Theatre to become one of the principal conductors of the Moscow Philharmonic. In 1960 he was named that ensemble’s Artistic Director, a post he held until 1976. By that time he enjoyed the same international recognition given to Mstislav Rostropovich, Sviatoslav Richter, and, of course, Oistrakh; so it came as no great surprise (at least in the West) when he defected from the Soviet Union in December of 1978.

At the beginning of this month, Profil released its latest anthology of recordings of historical significance. This is a collection of thirteen CDs entitled Kyrill Kondrashin Edition: 1937–1963. As can be seen from the dates, all of the recordings were made when Kondrashin was a Soviet citizen; but a few of the performances were recorded outside the Soviet Union. Indeed, there is even one recording, made of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Opus 34 “Capriccio espagnol,” which is attributed to that RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra. However, the date is given as 1957, meaning that it predates Kondrashin’s visit to the United State with Cliburn. Most likely this is a misprint: The RCA vinyl of Kondrashin and the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra playing both Rimsky-Korsakov’s Opus 34 and Tchaikovsky’s Opus 45 Capriccio Italien was released in 1959. The Profil track listing gives 1958 as the year in which Opus 45 was recorded. In all likelihood Opus 34 was recorded in the same session along the the Cliburn concerto recording. (All of those sessions took place in Carnegie Hall.) RCA probably assumed that Kondrashin’s trip to the United States might be a once-in-a-lifetime affair; and they wanted to get what they could out of the occasion!

The track listing also has the performance of Tchaikovsky’s Opus 48 serenade in C major as having been made in 1960 with the Staatskapelle Dresden, but it does not indicate whether it was made when that ensemble was visiting Russia or when Kondrashin was visiting Dresden. More specific are two recordings made in Prague with the Czech Philharmonic in May (Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 107 cello concerto in E-flat major with soloist Rostropovich) and July (Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Opus 44 symphony in A minor) of 1960. The Rostropovich recording is one of two, the other being of Tchaikovsky’s Opus 62 “Pezzo capriccioso.” Oistrakh, for his part, makes three appearances, two of which are for Tchaikovsky selections, the Opus 26 “Sérénade mélancolique” in B-flat minor and the Opus 35 violin concerto in D major.

The description thus far may lead the reader to suspect that the entire collection consists of “the usual Russian suspects.” While the balance definitely tips in favor of the Russians, Oistrakh’s third contribution is Maurice Ravel’s “Tzigane;” and that is the final track on a CD devoted entirely to Ravel. Of particular interest is that both of Ravel’s piano concertos are included, the “Concerto in G” with pianist Yakov Zak and the left-hand concerto with Emil Gilels. Even more unexpected is the presence of a 1961 recording of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra performing Paul Hindemith’s “Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber” in an account that is as fresh and witty as any recording available by a Western ensemble.

Indeed, the diversity of this collection is so great that it even includes a full opera. The last two CDs are devoted to Bedřich Smetana’s The Bartered Bride. Mind you, because the recording was made in 1949 at the Bolshoi Theater, the text is a Russian translation of Karel Sabina’s libretto, translated by Kondrashin himself working with Sergey Mikhalkov. (Fun fact about Mikhalkov: Since he was born in 1913 and died in 2009, he is probably the only author to have written lyrics for his country’s national anthem on three different occasions!)

Beyond the diversity, however, the real value of these recordings resides in Kondrashin’s talent as a conductor. He knew how to bring clarity to whatever he was conducting, regardless of when or where it was written. That capacity for clarity also included the bond of communication he could establish with any of his instrumental soloists. One can appreciate why Cliburn insisted that Kondrashin accompany him to the United States for his RCA recording debut. Half a century or more later, a new generation of listeners can now appreciate how much Kondrashin had to offer through his talents as a conductor.

Summer Night in Vienna with Eschenbach and Fleming

This past May the annual Summer Night Concert presented by the Vienna Philharmonic was held fir the first time directly in front of Vienna’s imperial Schönbrunn Palace. Christoph Eschenbach conducted, and the featured soloist was soprano Renée Fleming. Fleming’s selections included opera arias by Antonín Dvořák and art songs by Sergei Rachmaninoff. With the exception of the “Song to the Moon” from Dvořák’s Opus 114 opera Rusalka, there were unfamiliar selections. However, Eschenbach saw to the audience’s comfort zone with excerpts from the scores for two ballets, The Sleeping Beauty (Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky) and “The Firebird” (Igor Stravinsky). The prelude to Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel was complemented by Dvořák’s concert overture “Carnival;” and the “Dance of the Comedians” from Bedřich Smetana’s The Bartered Bride was thrown in as an encore; and popular tastes were satisfied with “Hedwig’s Theme” from the music that John Williams composed for the Harry Potter films.

To be fair, this was a festive evening, rather than a musical one. However, by the end of this past June, Sony Classics was ready to release it in CD form. The concert was also captured on video and broadcast on PBS last August 18. Nevertheless, even if the music itself was not the highest priority, many will feel that the encounters with less-performed selections by Dvořák and Rachmaninoff will be “worth the price of admission.” I am inclined to agree, although the Williams selection was so far removed from the context of the rest of the program that it bordered on cringe-inducing!

Friction Quartet Concludes O1C Residency with Two Premieres

Last night at the Old First Presbyterian Church, Old First Concerts (O1C) presented the members of the Friction Quartet (violinists Otis Harriel and Kevin Rogers, violist Taija Warbelow, and cellist Doug Machiz) in their final recital in the capacity of O1C Artists-in-Residence. While the two violinists tend to share leadership, Harriel occupied the first violin chair for the entire concert. The first half of the program was dedicated to two premiere performances, the West Coast premiere of Will Healy’s “Future Caprices” and the United States premiere of Piers Hellawell’s “The Still Dancers.” The second half of the program consisted entirely of Bedřich Smetana’s second string quartet.

The first half of the program might have been called “Future and Past New Music.” Healy’s piece was commissioned by the Great Lakes Chamber Festival explicitly to be played by Friction. In his note for the program book, he suggested that the music had its origin in an effort “to imagine the type of concert music that will exist in coming years.”

In an earlier life I used to hang out with futurists, and I discovered that their forecasting tended to project forward by about several generations. I quickly saw the reason for the strategy: They would not be around to be taken to task if their projections were not realized! That sobering experience braced me for how Healy would face the task he had set for himself.

However, I quickly found myself dwelling on the second word of his title. As I watched the Friction players negotiate a series of awesomely challenging virtuoso passages, it was hard not to think of those 24 caprices for solo violin that Niccolò Paganini published as his Opus 1. In my imagination I found myself observing Healy looking at Paganini but with his telescope reversed, as if one could look at the future by looking at the past through the wrong end. While this may have been a personal impression that had nothing to do with what Healy had in mind, the dominant impact was established by the demanding technique and the apparent ease with which Friction negotiated all the twists and turns posed by those technical challenges.

The Hellawell premiere, on the other hand, was of a piece that was about 25 years old, since it was written in 1992. It consisted of three short pieces, each with an introductory “Invocation,” which could be played separately, rather than in sequence. Hellawell described each of the invocations as “using exploratory sound-worlds” through techniques such as knocking or scratching with a coarse surface. The “dancers” of the title were natural phenomena, “formed by movement but now apparently static,” as Hellawell put it. Those phenomena were trees, rocks, and clouds.

This past Wednesday I found myself comparing the techniques of John Luther Adams and Olivier Messiaen where large masses of rock were concerned. Hellawell has his own distinctive language in his second piece, probably because he was more interested in the lichen patterns on the surface, rather than in the rocks themselves. More interesting was how, across the entire composition, he could evoke impressions of stasis through a medium that, by its very nature, requires movement. The result was as engaging as it was imaginative, and it was delightful to learn that Hellawell is in the process of writing his next quartet for Friction.

Smetana described his second quartet as taking place “after the catastrophe.” That catastrophe had concluded his first quartet in E minor, which was given the programmatic title “From My Life.” A sustained high E played as a harmonic (demonstrated last night by Rogers) depicted the onset of Smetana’s deafness. By the time he began work on the second quartet in 1882, both his mental state and his entire body were thoroughly wrecked to the point that his doctor had ordered him to refrain from all musical activity. In introducing the second quartet, Harriel observed that writing a single measure involved massive effort.

It is therefore no surprise that the duration of the second quartet is about one-third shorter than that of the first. Smetana made every measure count, and the sensitive listener will quickly appreciate the emotional weight of each of those measures. To their credit, the Friction players never tried to overdo the intensity of Smetana’s rhetoric. One thus apprehended the poignancy of the situation without ever feeling as if the composer was wallowing in his grief. Harriel noted that this quartet is played far less often than the first. Friction has done a great service in giving it the attention it deserves; and perhaps at some future recital they will play the two quartets in sequence as successive episodes from the composer’s final years.

Friction Quartet will Give Next “Residence” Concert at O1C

courtesy of the Friction Quartet

Regular readers probably know by now that the members of the Friction Quartet are currently Artists-in-Residence in the Old First Concerts (O1C) series. As pictured above in left-to-right order, the performers are violinist Kevin Rogers, cellist Doug Machiz, violist Taija Warbelow, and violinist Otis Harriel. Those who have attended past performances should also know that leadership is shared between Rogers and Harriel.

Exactly four weeks from today Friction will give its next O1C concert. The featured work on the program will be the United States premiere of “The Still Dancers” by Peter Hellawell, currently Professor of Composition at the Queen’s University of Belfast. Last year at the Center for New Music, Friction played Hellawell’s “Driftwood On Sand;” and that performance was captured on video:

YouTube video of Friction Quartet playing "Driftwood On Sand"

The program will also include Bedřich Smetana’s second string quartet in D minor. The last years of Smetana’s life were difficult. He had written his autobiographical first quartet in E minor in 1876, giving it the title “From My Life.” While most of the four-movement score recalled better times, the final movement is interrupted by a piercing high E that depicts the onset of his deafness. By the winter of 1882–1883, he was suffering from depression, insomnia, and hallucinations. He wrote the second quartet in defiance of orders from his doctor to refrain from all musical activity. He would die at the Kateřinky Lunatic Asylum in Prague on May 12, 1884 with cause of death registered as senile dementia.

The remainder of the program has not yet been announced. The performance will begin at 8 p.m. on Friday, July 21. O1C performances take place at the Old First Presbyterian Church, which is located at 1751 Sacramento Street on the southeast corner of Van Ness Boulevard. General admission will be $25 with discounted rates of $20 for seniors and $5 for full-time students showing valid identification. Children aged twelve and under will still be admitted for free. In addition there is a $2 discount for tickets purchased online in advance from the event page for this concert on the Old First Concerts Web site. There is also a discount available for those parking at the Old First Parking Garage at 1725 Sacramento Street, just up the street for the church.

An All-Czech Program from a Prague-Based String Quartet

The Prague-based Pavel Haas Quartet (PHQ) has made regular appearances in San Francisco for some time and has become a favorite visiting ensemble among those who take their chamber music seriously. While past performances have been arranged by San Francisco Performances, yesterday afternoon in Herbst Theatre PHQ appeared in San Francisco for the first time under the auspices of Chamber Music San Francisco (CMSF). This was also our first opportunity to listen to violist Radim Sedmidubský, who replaced Pavel Nikl some time after the last PHQ performance here in October of 2015. The other members remain the same, founder and first violinist Veronika Jarůšková, her husband Peter Jarůšek on cello, and second violinist Marek Zwiebel.

The program consisted entirely of music by Czech composers. The three pieces were played in reverse chronological order, and only the earliest of these was written in the composer’s native land.  That was Bedřich Smetana’s first string quartet, composed in 1876 after the onset of deafness and given the programmatic title “From My Life.” Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 96 (“American”) quartet in F major was written in 1893, during the time the composer spent in the United States; and the most recent composition, Bohuslav Martinů’s third quartet was written in 1930, about seven years after he left Prague and moved to Paris.

Listening to PHQ is a bit like eavesdropping on a conversation in which each conversant has his/her own distinctive opinions but there is always common ground on which agreement is established. Such an approach well serves the Smetana quartet, which is a product of deeply-felt autobiographical recollections. Each instrumental voice seems to draw upon a different side of the composer’s character.

The opening theme for viola is particularly assertive, suggesting the boldness with which Smetana chose to make his first impressions, while the cello captures his more obstreperous side, particularly in the highly eccentric recollection of a polka in the second movement. Jarůšková, on the other hand, has a thoroughly astonishing command of soft extremes in her dynamic range. This allows her to begin a theme with a whisper and then gradually “raise her voice” to reveal the full expressiveness of that theme. Her technique allowed for a particularly hushed quality in the third movement of the quartet; but her part also requires her to interrupt the final movement with that high E played with harmonic bowing through which Smetana documented the onset of tinnitus that foreshadowed his deafness. The result was an account of Smetana’s score whose dramatic connotations were particularly well-defined by the personality types evoked by each of the PHQ members.

Dvořák’s Opus 96, on the other hand, was much sunnier in its disposition. However, here, too, Jarůšková brought a freshness to this particularly familiar music through her impeccable command of the full breadth of dynamic range. Thus, once again, she could introduce a theme as a hint of a suggestion and then let it unfold with the richness of some exotic flower.

That command of dynamics was particularly crucial in the execution of Martinů’s quartet. This piece begins with hushed whispers from which themes first emerge only as fragments. By 1930 Martinů had been involved in a variety of avant-garde projects in Paris; but the quartet marked a move to neoclassicism, which could well have been his own way of responding to a similar move by Igor Stravinsky about a decade earlier. Stravinsky, of course, did not think very much of string quartets, either the ensemble or its repertoire, while Martinů was far more sympathetic. Indeed, there is a prevailing rhetoric of cheerfulness that suffuses the third quartet’s three movements, almost as if he was reflecting on the high spirits that must have been experienced when Joseph Haydn played second violin and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart played viola in string quartet gatherings with Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (first violin) and Johann Baptist Wanhal (cello). From this point of view, PHQ could bring their own rich sense of individual personalities to bear on this twentieth-century perspective of eighteenth-century music-making.

As might be guessed, the entire program was enthusiastically received by the CMSF audience. That was sufficient to persuade PHQ to take an encore. They returned to Dvořák to play the first (in A-flat major) of his two Opus 54 waltzes for string quartet. This selection had an easy-going salon-like feel, yet another reminder that a string quartet is as much a social encounter as a musical one.

The Last Sunday in March will Require Choices

The final weekend in March will not be quite as hectic as some of its predecessors. However, the last Sunday will require making some choices. Fortunately, the options tend to appeal to different tastes. Here are the specifics for Sunday, March 26:

3 p.m., Fort Mason: The title of this year’s fundraising Gala for the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra (SFCO) will be SFCO Goes to the Movies! The entertainment for the occasion involves silent movies screened at the Cowell Theater. The “feature film” will be Charlie Chaplin’s 1916 The Pawnshop, preceded by an early animated short. That short will be Walt Disney’s 1928 “Plane Crazy,” which was Mickey Mouse’s very first appearance. Donald Sosin has composed scores for both of these films, and his music will be performed live by SFCO. The screening will be preceded by a reception at which “bites and bubbly” will be served. There will also be a raffle. The screening will be followed by a three-course seated dinner at Greens Restaurant, followed by a live auction.

Fort Mason is located in the Marina District with an entrance at 2 Marina Boulevard. Movie tickets are on sale for $50, $20 of which is tax-deductible. There is also a youth rate for those aged twelve and under. Admission is only $35; and, again, $20 is tax-deductible. Tickets may be purchased online at the Registration Web page for the Gala. As of this writing, all Red Carpet Tickets for both the screening and the dinner have been sold. However, those interested in the dinner are invited to call 415-463-6718 for any last-minute availability.

3 p.m., Herbst Theatre: The Prague-based Pavel Haas Quartet will return to San Francisco, where their visits have been welcome for many years. The group consists of violinists Veronika Jarůšková and Marek Zwiebel, violist Pavel Nikl, and cellist Peter Jarůšek; and this season’s visit has been arranged by Chamber Music San Francisco (CMSF). Over the course of its visits, the ensemble has offered a broad account of its diverse repertoire; but, unless I am mistaken, this will be their first San Francisco recital devoted entirely to Czech composers.

They will present these composers in reverse chronological order. They will begin with the third of the seven string quartets of Bohuslav Martinů, which he composed in Paris in 1929. This will be followed by what will probably be the most familiar work on the program, Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 96 (“American”) quartet in F major. This was written during the composer’s tenure as Director of the National Conservatory in New York City. However, he worked on it during the summer vacation he spent in 1893 with the Czech immigrant community living in Spillville, Iowa. The program will then conclude with Bedřich Smetana’s retrospective string quartet (his first) in E minor. He composed this piece in 1876 after having been consumed by total deafness; and the final movement is haunted (through harmonic bowing of a high E) by the attack of tinnitus that preceded the onset of that deafness.

The entrance to Herbst Theatre is on the ground floor of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. Ticket prices are $55 (Orchestra and Boxes), $46 (Dress Circle), and $37 (Balcony). Tickets may be purchased online through a City Box Office event page, which includes a floor plan that shows the number of seats available in the different sections. In addition, it is still possible to save $4 on each ticket with the purchase of a mini-series of four or more concerts. The best way to do this will be to contact CMSF by phone at 415-392-4400.

4 p.m., St. Mark’s Lutheran Church: This will be the next San Francisco performance that Artistic Director Magen Solomon has prepared for San Francisco Choral Artists. The full title of the program is Witches, Saints, and Mothers: Music By and About Women. The program will feature settings of poems by H.D. (the pen name for Hilda Doolittle) by the winners of the New Voices Project competition, James May and Ben Zucker. There will also be premieres of new works by both Composer-in-Residence Elinor Armer and Composer-Not-in-Residence Paul Chihara. Other composers to be included will be Tina Harrington and Linda Mankin (both from the Bay Area), Leanne D. Veitch (New Zealand, born in Australia), Chen Yi (Missouri, born in China), Patricia Julien (Vermont), and Alice Parker (Massachusetts).

St. Mark’s is located at 1111 O’Farrell Street, just west of the intersection with Franklin Street. Tickets will be sold at the door for $33 with a $29 charge for seniors and $15 for individuals under 30 with identification. Tickets may be purchased in advance online through a Brown Paper Tickets event page. The reduced rates for advance purchase are, respectively, $28, $25, and $12.50.

[added 3/8, 7:50 a.m.:

4 p.m., St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church: Another choral offering, on a slightly smaller scale, will be taking place at exactly the same time. The next program that has been prepared by the eight male vocalists of Clerestory is entitled Gemini: Music for Double Choirs. This will be an extensive survey of music for pairs of four-voice choirs, all sung one-to-a-part to provide the clearest possible account of the intricate development of both counterpoint and harmony. The program will include a setting of the “Stabat Mater” hymn by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, as well as motets based on the Song of Songs by Tomás Luis de Victoria, Sebastián de Vivanco, and Francisco Guerrero. The major work from the twentieth century will be Ralph Vaughan Williams’ G minor setting of the Mass text. Other composers on the program will be Benjamin Britten, Paul Crabtree, Herbert Howells, and James MacMillan.

St. Gregory's is located at 500 De Haro Street, at the foot of Potrero Hill. General admission will be $25 with a $15 rate for students. Tickets are available in advance online through an Eventbrite event page.]

5:30 p.m., Taube Atrium Theater: This day will also present the first of the four concerts being offered in the 34th season of the Schwabacher Debut Recitals. This series is presented jointly by the San Francisco Opera Center and the Merola Opera Program, both of which are committed to the cultivation of emerging talents. The season will begin with a program entitled Expressionism, Icons and the Exotic. Pianist Mark Morash, San Francisco Opera Center Director of Musical Studies, will accompany two Merola alumni from this past summer, mezzo Taylor Raven and bass-baritone Cody Quattlebaum. The composers to be presented on this program will be (in order of performance) Antón García Abril, Xavier Montsalvatge, Claude Debussy, Jacques Ibert, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and Alban Berg.

The Taube Atrium Theater is part of the Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera, which is also located in the Veterans Building (on the fourth floor) at the corner of Van Ness Avenue and McAllister Street. General admission will be $30. Tickets may be purchased in advance online through an event page on the San Francisco Opera Web site. Note that, because much of the seating is raked, it is possible to select the option of Wheelchair Accessible seats. In addition, subject to availability, student rush tickets will go on sale at 5 p.m. at the reduced rate of $15. There is a limit of two tickets per person, and valid identification must be shown.

The remaining three programs will also take place on Sundays at 5:30 p.m. at the same venue. Dates and artists are as follows:

• April 2: Baritone Sol Jin will give a solo recital accompanied by pianist Kirill Kuzmin.
• April 9: An American Pastiche, a compilation of songs by American composers, will be presented by mezzo Renée Rapier and bass Anthony Reed, accompanied by John Churchwell at the piano.
• April 30: Pianist Warren Jones will accompany 2017 Adler Fellows Amina Edris (soprano), Amitai Pati (tenor) and Andrew Manea (baritone).

Subscriptions for the entire four-recital series are available for $100. However, these are not available online. They may be purchased in person at the San Francisco Opera Box Office, located in the outer lobby of the War Memorial Opera House at 301 Van Ness Avenue, on the northwest corner of Grove Street. They may also be purchased by calling 415-864-3330.

[added 3/21, 9:30 a.m.

5:30 p.m., Concerts by the Square: The last of the four house concerts that Robert Howard has prepared for the 2016/17 season of a series he calls Concerts by the Square will take a decidedly innovative turn. He will team up with pipa virtuoso Shenshen Zhang for a program that will explore traditional Chines music, its 2000 year history, and recent Western collaborations. Composers on the program will include Bright Sheng and Zhou Long, both of whom now live in the United States.

Because seating is very limited, reservations must be made prior to the performance date. All reservations require a donation, which is tax-deductible as allowed by law. (Concerts by the Square is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.) A Reservation Web page has been created with a hyperlink for $60 donations. The venue is a Victorian flat near Alamo Square (hence the title of the series), which is 42 stairs above street level. Unfortunately, no elevator is available. Specific details regarding the address of the venue are provided once a reservation has been confirmed.]

Some Thoughts About Conductors Making Their SFS Debuts Next Season

Early this afternoon the San Francisco Symphony and its Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas announced plans for the 2017–2018 season. As usual, the season will be a generous one with considerable diversity. There is sufficient breadth to account for a wide variety of preview perspectives, each involving a different area of interest. However, given how much I find myself using this site to try and tease out the nature of performance, I find that every season I look forward to those conductors who will be encountering SFS for the first time.

Next season there will be three of them, Jakub Hrůša, Edward Gardner, and Daniel Harding. I hope I am not the only one with a long enough memory to recall that one of them, Harding, will not be a stranger to Davies Symphony Hall. Perhaps I remember him because he takes me back to a time when I was just beginning to find my footing in the complex task of writing about the elaborate relationship between performing and listening. In October of 2010 Harding visited Davies as part of the Great Performers Series when he conducted the Staatskapelle Dresden.

The program was very much a “meat and potatoes” affair following the conventional overture-concerto-symphony structure. The concerto soloist was Rudolf Buchbinder, a pianist whom, at that time, I had known only through his recordings, particularly of the sonatas of Joseph Haydn. The concerto selection was Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 54 (fourth) piano concerto in G major; and the “symphony pairing” was Johannes Brahms’ Opus 73 (second) symphony in D major. For the overture Harding turned to Robert Schumann, who served somewhat as a “bridge” between Beethoven and Brahms; and the selection came from the Opus 115 incidental music that Schumann had composed to be performed in conjunction with a reading of Lord Byron’s dramatic poem in three “acts” Manfred. (The scare quotes emphasize that Byron had not intended his poem to be staged and thought of it as a “metaphysical” drama.)

Harding will return to Davies, this time to lead SFS, in April of 2018. Once again his concerto selection will come from Beethoven, Opus 37 (the third) in C minor. Paul Lewis, a pianist whom I have seen only thanks to San Francisco Performances, will be the soloist. This time, however, Beethoven will be followed by Richard Strauss’ “An Alpine Symphony,” his Opus 64. The duration of this work, usually around 50 minutes, is sufficiently extended that combining concerto and symphony should make for a full program.

Just as interesting is likely to be the “Anglo-American” approach to programming that will be taken by Gardner in March of 2018. Gardner will bring his English sympathies to the SFS podium to lead the four “Ritual Dances” that Michael Tippett composed for his three-act opera The Midsummer Marriage. The American side will, in turn, be represented by George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” However, to make the affair a bit more international, the soloist will be the Macedonian pianist Simon Trpčeski, who is no stranger to Davies.

For his part, Hrůša will prepare a program of music from his native Czech Republic for his SFS debut in October of 2017. His overture will be Antonín Dvořák’s “Carnival.” Bedřich Smetana will be represented by the most familiar symphonic poem from his Má Vlast (my homeland) cycle, “Vltava,” named for the river known as the Moldau in German. He will conclude the program with the orchestral rhapsody that Leoš Janáček composed based on Nikolai Gogol’s novel Taras Bulba. This piece is structured in three movements, each of which is based on the death of one of the three major characters, Taras Bulba himself and his two sons, Andrei and Ostap.

Taken as a whole these three programs are likely to provide new perspectives on both familiar and unfamiliar music, one of many reasons to look forward to the coming SFS season.

Conservatory Orchestra: a Weak Account of a Potentially Strong Program

Over the last several years the Conservatory Orchestra of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music has built up a reputation of quality to match that of professional ensembles in the Bay Area. When Eric Dudley arrived this past fall to become the group’s new conductor, it appeared that this reputation would be sustained. Sadly, more recent offerings led by Dudley have yielded evidence to the contrary; and last night made a disconcerting case that high expectations were no longer in order.

This was unfortunate, particularly in light of the amount of attention given to rising student talent. The evening began with a performance of “Vltava” (the Moldau), the second piece in Bedřich Smetana’s cycle of six symphonic poems, Má vlast (my homeland). The conductor was Edward Hong, due to graduate at the end of this term and presumably under Dudley’s tutelage. Smetana’s structural plan for “Vltava” involved a detailed musical account that traces the river from its origins in two small springs all the way through Prague, after which it flows into the Elbe, which proceeds through Germany.

Things got off to a good start with the pairs of flutes and clarinets depicting the sources:

from IMSLP (public domain)

The rhythms of the winds are then picked up by the low strings as the primary theme of the symphonic poem is first introduced. Hong maintained an easygoing pace with dynamic contours that smoothly captured the sense of the river’s flow. All proceeded well until winds returned to depict the dancing of mermaids in the moonlight, an entry that seemed to lack both coordination and intonation. After that Hong never quite recovered, although he was still able to maintain the overall sense of flow. Nevertheless, the appearance of Vyšehrad castle at the climax of the piece, which recalls the theme for the castle introduced by the preceding symphonic poem in Má vlast, lacked any sense of “arrival” and seemed to pass as just another sight long the banks of the river. As a result, the overall impact of the piece was noticeably blunted.

Hong was followed by classmate Madeline Hocking, also due to graduate at the end of this term. She was the 2016 Violin Concerto Competition Winner; and she performed Maurice Ravel’s “Tzigane” with Dudley conducting the Conservatory Orchestra. “Tzigane” is definitely not a concerto. It is less than ten minutes in duration and can probably be called “Ravel’s Hungarian rhapsody.” He wrote it for the Hungarian violinist Jelly d’Arányi as a duo for violin and piano supplemented with a luthéal attachment to evoke the sonorities of a cimbalom. The piece was first performed on April 26, 1924, and Ravel’s orchestration of the piano part received its premiere the following October 19.

The printed score of the violin-piano version is seventeen pages long. The first four of those pages are cadenza with accompaniment only emerging on the fourth page. After that the music proceeds into a series of gypsy-like themes with no shortage of sensuous exoticism. The piece is notorious for the demands it places on the violinist. However, when played properly, it can make for a fun listening experience; and Ravel clearly had a chuckle or two when it came to choosing instruments for his orchestration.

It clearly took a lot of courage for Hocking to commit to performing this piece, and one cannot deny that she gave it a good shot. However, the score is a high-wire act, meaning that even the slightest misstep is blatantly evident. In other words anything short of perfection is inescapably noticeable; and there were, indeed, such moments to notice. Had Hocking simply let them pass and focused more on the outrageous spirit of the music, she could still have pulled off her performance; but, unfortunately, her head was too much mired in all of those technical demands. Dudley, for his part, could make the most of Ravel’s orchestration, but not enough to spark the fiery spirit this music demands.

To his credit, however, Dudley was definitely supportive in managing both tempo and balance of dynamic levels. Sadly, this was not the case in his interpretation of Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 60 (sixth) symphony in D major. It almost seemed as if he was living for only the fortissimo dynamics in the score, and anything else was mere connective tissue to be traversed. The idea that a dynamic contour should serve as a landscape with only a small number of significant climaxes did not appear to be part of his plan. Thus, when a major thematic episode repeated, one came away with the impression that Dudley’s approach was “Let’s try it again but louder this time.”

There is, of course, the maxim that loud music promotes a loud response. There is nothing like a thundering coda to summon thundering applause from the audience. Nevertheless, there was a prevailing shallowness in Dudley’s overall conception of this symphony. While it is probably true that Opus 60 does not rise to the heights of Dvořák’s later symphonies, it is just as true that it can stand up to a more attentive approach to performance than Dudley was willing to give.

San Francisco Conservatory of Music: March, 2017

It turns out that February will be even quieter at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) than January was. However, things will definitely pick up in March, meaning that it is not too soon to think about making plans. As always all events will take place in the SFCM building at 50 Oak Street, between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street, a short walk from the Van Ness Muni station. Readers are encouraged to consult the newly designed Performance Calendar Web page at the SFCM Web site for the most up-to-date information about any of these offerings. Here is a chronological listening of events likely to be of interest:

Thursday, March 2, 8 p.m., Recital Hall: As a follow-up to tomorrow night’s master class to be given by Tekla Cunningham as part of a series shared by the Historical Performance Department and American Bach Soloists, March will begin with a Faculty Artist Series recital featuring the Historical Performance Department. Cunningham will be joined by her ABS violinist colleague Elizabeth Blumenstock, along with continuo provided by Department Co-Directors Elisabeth Reed (cello) and Corey Jamason (harpsichord). Program details have not yet been announced, but this concert will be free and will not require tickets.

Saturday, March 4, 8 p.m., Concert Hall: The next Orchestra concert will feature student violinist Madeline Hocking (’17). She will be featured as soloist in Maurice Ravel’s “gypsy rhapsody” “Tzigane.” Ravel originally wrote this for violin and piano, but he orchestrated the accompaniment shortly after the piece was first performed on April 26, 1924. This “concerto” portion of the program will be preceded by the “overture” of “Vltava” (the Czech name for the river better known as the Moldau), the second piece in the six-movement cycle that Bedřich Smetana called Má vlast (my homeland). The symphony selection will also be Czech, Antonín Dvořák’s sixth symphony in D major. As always, tickets will be $20 for general admission and $15 for students, seniors, and Conservatory members. Tickets may be purchased in advance online through a Click4tix event page.

Sunday, March 5, 11 a.m.–9 p.m., all venues: Readers may recall that one week from today the Guerrilla Composers Guild will be presenting a preview concert for the Hot Air Music Festival, the annual new music marathon run by SFCM students. The marathon itself is divided up into four sessions with some overlap across the second and third. All three of the SFCM performance spaces (Concert Hall, Recital Hall, Osher Salon) will be used. The entire event is free, and no tickets are required. Members of the audience are free to come and go as they please. The festival has created a Web page listing all the works to be performed at each of the four sessions.

Monday, March 6, 7:30 p.m., Recital Hall: The second Faculty Artist Series in March will be given by guitarist Marc Teicholz. Program details have not yet been announced. The concert will be free, and no tickets will be required.

Saturday, March 11, 7 p.m. and Sunday, March 12, 2 p.m., Concert Hall: The second offering by the Historical Performance Department this month will be a performance of George Frederic Handel’s HWV 35 pastoral three-act opera Atalanta. This presentation is produced in partnership with the Opera and Musical Theatre Department. Both performances will be free, and tickets will not be required.

Monday, March 13, 7:30 p.m., Recital Hall: The third Faculty Artist Series in March will be given by violinist Bettina Mussumeli. She has prepared a program consisting entirely of music by Ludwig van Beethoven, but details have not yet been announced. Mussumeli’s accompanist will be pianist Keisuke Nakagoshi. The concert will be free, and no tickets will be required.

Influence (or not) Without (or with) Anxiety

If I was at a disadvantage for hearing Sofia Gubaidulina's "The Light of the End" only once (that one time being last night at Davies Symphony Hall), that disadvantage was somewhat compensated by my hearing her "Repentance" as the first work on the program of this afternoon's Chamber Music Series concert at Davies. This work was first performed in 2007 and is very much a continuation of what I called her "exploration of the dialectic between the traditional sonorities of equal-tempered tuning and those of musical instruments' natural harmonics." In this case, however, rather than working with the rich palette of a large orchestra, she focused on a much smaller ensemble, which still had rich timbrous possibilities. The work was originally scored for a solo cello (dedicated to the cellist Ivan Monighetti) accompanied by a guitar quartet. The program notes quoted Gubaidulina's description of the work in her own words as:

… a constant striving to perceive the mystery of consonant sounds in the chords of harmonics played by the guitars [which] turns out, each time [through a series of variations], to be unattainable. And we return, against and again, to dark coloration. Only at the end—in the fifth variation, that is—the confessional expression of the cello's cantilena results in the genuinely radiant sound of harmonics in the soprano guitar. It is as if the force of this expression had rescued a spirit striving for the light from the dark of Plato's cave.

For this performance Gubaidulina rescored the work so that the cello was accompanied by three guitars and a double bass. It is hard to speculate how these sounds would have compared with those of the original scoring; but, from the way in which she received the performers at the conclusion of the work, it seemed apparent that she was more than satisfied with the sound. (Indeed, she seemed more interested in letting the performers know about her satisfaction than in turning around to acknowledge the enthusiastic audience response.)

In many ways the tension of that underlying dialectical opposition is more evident in the more transparent texture of this chamber setting than it was in the rich orchestral textures of "The Light of the End." Also, chamber music tends to give off an air of more personal commitment, since every individual voice is far more exposed; and with that commitment came an abundance of one-to-one and one-to-many communicative actions. This was particularly apparent in the relationship between lead guitarist David Tanenbaum and the other two guitars (Thomas Viloteau and Elliot Simpson) and the bass (Scott Pingel). They were all there to engage both with and against cellist Peter Wyrick's solo lines; and the resulting web of communication was one of the most fascinating I have experienced in any chamber music performance.

The score itself also inspired a rich repertoire of memories on my part, leading me to wonder which, if any, of them may have been part of Gubaidulina's own influences. Most interesting was the extent to which those chord progressions played by the guitars constituted a reflection (somewhere along the spectrum between solemn and playful) on the chorales of the "Fratres" compositions by Arvo Pärt. The writing for bass, on the other hand, led me to wonder whether or not, during her years of music education in Russia, Gubaidulina might have secreted away a stash of Charles Mingus recordings. More unlikely, but still worth speculating, is that the ensemble guitar work at its wildest displayed the same sort of abandon that I have heard only in the rhythmic energies of Harry Partch (and, as was the case with Partch's music, seeing the guitars negotiate those passages was just as satisfying as listening to them). Thus, I now seem to be creating a place for Gubaidulina in my own "memory palace" of personal listening experiences; and I hope that it will not be long before I return to that chamber of the palace.

If Gubaidulina saw pain in that dialectical opposition behind her current compositional efforts, there was another kind of pain in Bedřich Smetana's first string quartet in E minor, composed in 1876 with the descriptive title "Z mého života" (From My Life). Smetana had gone deaf in 1874; and this quartet is very much a document of both the folk music that influenced him and his own characteristic interpretations of those influences, which, in the final movement, is abruptly interrupted by a high E in the first violin. According to Smetana, that was the precise frequency of the tinnitus that preceded the onset of his deafness. When one hears this work for the first time, as I did last May at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, even if one has read a description of this work's "program," one does not know what to expect. Once one has heard it, however, the anticipation of that E haunts all the wistful nostalgia of the first three movements like a ghost. When it comes, it attacks the spirit of the listener in a manner that I, for one, find far more devastating than, for example, the hammer blows of Gustav Mahler's sixth symphony that symbolize his own personal catastrophes. There is thus a need to pace the performance of the tragic blow that will fall in the final movement; and this particular quartet of San Francisco Symphony members (violins Sarn Oliver and Mariko Smiley, viola Yun Jie Liu, and cello Margaret Tait) knew exactly what that pace should be.

After the intermission another quartet (violins Nadya Tichman and Suzanne Leon, viola Adam Smyla, and cello Michael Grebanier) performed the sixth of Ludwig van Beethoven's Opus 18 string quartets (in B-flat major). This work also has a title, "La Malinconia" (Melancholy), which refers to the Adagio that begins the final movement at later interrupts the Allegretto quasi allegro section. Thayer offers no clues as to whether or not this melancholy was grounded in a personal experience, but the spirit of this work provided an excellent complement to Gubaidulina's sense of pain in the dialectic she chose to explore and Smetana's decision to document the pain of his own personal tragedy. I should also point out that the rendering of this particular melancholy by this particular quartet was quite effective, especially coming right on the heels of the slightly off-kilter rhythms of the third Scherzo movement, which almost serves as an omen that the affability of the first two movements is about to be dispersed. Yet, if each work on the program was under the same sort of dark clouds that have been bringing rain to San Francisco for all of this day, the performances of all three of the works provided the brilliance of the sun we were not able to see. Once again, this has proved to be an exciting city for the chamber music it offers.

New Bookends

Last night's recital by violinist Christian Tetzlaff accompanied by pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, in Herbst Theatre under the auspices of San Francisco Performances, offered its least familiar material at the very beginning and in the encores. This is hardly the first time I attended a concert that began with "something new;" but it made for an interesting way to arrange the evening. Before the intermission, Johannes Brahms' D minor (Opus 108) violin sonata was preceded by the violin sonata of Leoš Janáček; and the program after the intermission consisted of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's F major (K. 377) violin sonata and Franz Schubert's B minor rondo brillant (D. 895), followed by two encores of "Danses Champêtres" (Opus 106, Number 5 and probably Number 1) by Jean Sibelius.

San Francisco has been a good place to learn how to listen to Janáček. During her tenure with the San Francisco Opera, Pamela Rosenberg offered three of his operas, Jenůfa, Káťa Kabanová, and The Cunning Little Vixen; and last June David Robertson conducted the San Francisco Symphony in an exquisite performance of his Taras Bulba "rhapsody." I last wrote about Janáček in a post on "nationalist" music, observing that the Oxford Dictionary of Music had classified him as sharing the "Bohemian" category with Bedřich Smetana and Antonín Dvořák. At that time I questioned whether Bohemia was actually ever a nation; but I think it is important to recognize that the conditions of Janáček's birth do not necessarily endow him with any "family resemblance" to either Smetana or Dvořák. His voice is very much a unique one, and the only way to get to know it is through exposure. So I am glad that San Francisco has provided me with a generous share of opportunities for such exposure, because through that exposure I could begin to feel a sense of familiarity with Janáček's violin sonata, even though this was the first time I heard it.

In the framework of yesterday's "self-evident truths about listening," that sense of familiarity clearly resided in "features of the general." Being more specific (to play with the words), there is a particular sense of fragmentation in Janáček's approach to melody. When I wrote about Taras Bulba, I talked about Janáček approaching music "as a structuring of 'sonorous objects;'" and, while this may be most apparent in his orchestral writing, it was clear that his violin sonata involved an intimate interplay of particularly characteristic sonorities that he wanted to capture in both violin and piano. To some extent one could call the melodies themselves "Bohemian," particularly in the first movement; but the second movement ("Ballada") had less of that "folk" sound and felt almost like a deliberate move away from the "exotic." Taken as a whole, I found the four movements a welcome addition to the repertoire of accompanied violin sonatas and would like nothing better than more opportunities to listen to performances; so I can begin to make the move from the general to the more specific, since there is clearly a richness of detail in this work just waiting to be explored.

The Brahms sonata was basically the warhorse of the evening, which is not meant as a dismissive observation. Andsnes is an awesome Brahms pianist; this was clear from his performance of the Opus 83 piano concerto with the San Francisco Symphony this past spring. He brings a level of energy that dismisses all of those clichés about Brahms' "stale classicism;" and Tetzlaff reinforced that energy, even if that reinforcement led to a certain coarseness of sound. However, if this sonata is considered from that same "progressive" perspective that I applied to the concerto, then there is much to be said for a performance that goes out to (if not beyond) the threshold of "disciplined control." This is not to say that the performance was reckless, but it delivered a sense of abandon to the music that seemed to make for an entirely appropriate interpretation.

Ironically, there was a similar level of abandon in the Mozart sonata, particularly in its opening allegro. This is the work of Mozart in his twenties, still the show-off kid strutting his stuff in Vienna. Presumably Mozart himself performed the piano part, hopefully with a violinist who was up to the task of keeping up with him. Andsnes is now well out of his own twenties. However, he knew how to summon his "inner twenty-year-old" for this performance; and Tetzlaff was, once again, right there with him in the spirit of the occasion. This time, however, the performance was less about abandon and more about control, although that control was applied to a variety of impressive virtuoso feats. Nevertheless, that spirit of abandon returned in the Schubert rondo. This work was composed almost two years before Schubert's death at a time when he was being very adventurous about both formal structure and the "action" within the structure. Within that balancing act we encounter the same sorts of flirtations with madness that surface in so many of his songs, as well has his earlier D. 760 "Wanderer" fantasy; but, for all those flirtations, Schubert never gives up control. Thus, performance demands a "deliberate depiction" of the madness; and that is precisely the approach that Tetzlaff and Andsnes brought to their interpretation.

Finally, the encores threw a new light on Sibelius' approach to violin music. We ended the evening where we began, with one composer's decidedly individual approach to his own country's "nationalism." Thus, in spite of the French title, these works elicit the voice of the violin as Finnish folk instrument (which I once had occasion to hear in conjunction with a conference on cognitive musicology). Here any coarseness of sound was definitely part of that "nationalist" spirit, which again seemed to approach composition through "sonorous objects," but with an entirely different spectrum of sounds. It is not often the case that the unity of a program extends to its encores, but there is no doubt that Sibelius was as important a "bookend" for the entire evening as Janáček had been at the beginning.

A Recital of Contrasts

This afternoon at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music I had the opportunity to hear the entirety of the E-flat major D. 929 piano trio, whose second movement had been prepared for Joel Krosnick's master class last March. By way of context, at the time of that master class I wrote the following observation:

There is also an exogenous connection to the Schubert trio, but it goes in the other direction. Schubert began work on his D. 944 ("Great") C major symphony shortly after completing this trio; and, as Krosnick observed, both of the compositions have a slow movement marked "Andante con moto." However, they share a deeper connection in that the "moto" factor in each of these movements reveals at least a faint suggestion of a march (which was a music form that Schubert seemed to enjoy). That suggestion is a bit stronger due to the use of brass in the symphony. However, it is still there in the piano trio, although it is interrupted by one of Schubert's "storms" (as Krosnick calls them), which may be the basis for a forward-looking exogenous connection to the sorts of mood swings we would later encounter in compositions by Gustav Mahler.

I would say that the suggestion of a march was pretty faint; but that "moto" factor dispelled any sense that it was a funeral march, an approach that is sometimes taken, possibly under the influence of Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. However, beyond the nature of this single movement, there is a deeper "family resemblance" between the piano trio and the symphony, which is the overall scale of duration. Both require approximately the same amount of time to perform, which usually clocks in at more than forty minutes; and, as I have already observed about the symphony, much of that scale is realized through repetitions (which some performers have felt to be superfluous).

Thus, the most important thing about this performance of D. 929 in its entirety is that it did not feel too long. The performers found a way to work out the right balance between the number of score pages and the amount of clock time. By keeping the overall scale manageable, they could then take Schubert's mood swings (which occur in the other three movements, as well as the second) and deliver their emotional impact without succumbing to tedium. The trio thus emerged as high drama based on a text that was lengthy without being excessive, and the result was as exciting as any performance of this trio that I had previously heard.

Those mood swings were important to the overall program, which was very much structured around sharp shifts in mood and other contrasts. Thus, the program began with the first string quartet by Bedřich Smetana. The mood swings of this work are nicely captured by the description of this quartet in the Wikipedia entry for Smetana:

His string quartet in E minor, Z mého života (From My Life, composed in 1876), the first of only two quartets, is an autobiographical work. Each movement tells a different story about Smetana's life. The first movement is expressive, demonstrative of Smetana's youthful love of art and his search for something undefinable. The second movement, carefree and somewhat raucous, takes the listener back to the days of Smetana's youth. The third movement is reminiscent of the happiness Smetana felt when in love with the girl who later became his wife. The final movement begins with Smetana's joy over the recognition which was given to the national music of Bohemia. However, as the movement progresses, the music is punctuated by a piercing high E in the first violin which, Smetana explained, represents the devastating effects of his tinnitus.

The students performing this quartet excellently captured this moment of crisis in the final movement, using is to pivot a final movement from a triumphant joy to a despair that fades into the silence of the deafness that had overtaken Smetana in 1874.

In keeping with the overall theme of the program, the remaining work on the program was the Contrasts of Béla Bartók for piano, violin, and clarinet (written for Benny Goodman). Contrasts are everywhere to be found, from the large scale differences across the three movements to the variety of acoustic effects elicited by each instrument and the ways in which these acoustic differences are combined. By way of introduction, we were told that Bartók never particularly liked Goodman; and it is easy enough to see that Bartók might not have taken very well to Goodman's approach to swing (if not to swing in general). In my personal fantasies Bartók suffered the tragedy of being to early for the jazz that would have meant something to him. With his keen ear for recording Hungarian folk music, he probably would have felt more at home with the improvisations of Charlie Parker; and, had he lived long enough, he would have appreciated the effort John Coltrane made to play along with a recording of the introduction to the first movement of his Concerto for Orchestra (from which Coltrane learned the value of wide intervals, which he would then exercise in "Giant Steps"). Whatever the hardships surrounding its composition, however, Contrasts is still a great sonic adventure, giving the ear a roller coaster ride through its contrasts on so many different scales of magnitude; and the Conservatory students did an excellent job of meeting the challenges of this piece, which really deserves to be performed more often.