SFCMP: Progressive Rock Meets High Modernism

Following up in RE:voicing, the first program in the 53rd concert season of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP) in Grace Cathedral last month, the ensemble will present its second program, RE:visitations at the more conventional venue of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM). The “visitations” involve an encounter between the worlds of Progressive Rock and High Modernism. Each of those worlds is oriented by a “distinguished representative.”

Where rock is involved, that representative is Frank Zappa, while advanced modernism is represented by Pierre Boulez. Many might view the two as an “odd couple;” but, back when I was a researcher at the Information Sciences Institute of the University of Southern California, I was fortunate enough to attend a dialog between the two of them, which took place at the University of California at Los Angeles. This was probably the most agreeable encounter of “opposites” that I ever had an opportunity to witness.

In that context I can appreciate that the final two works on the RE:visitations program will be compositions by Boulez and Zappa, both of which were completed in 1984. Boulez’ “Dérive 1” was scored for the five instruments selected by Arnold Schoenberg for his Pierrot Lunaire with a vibraphone added for good measure. The duration of most performances runs between seven and eight minutes. (For those curious about the Boulez catalog, there is a “Dérive 2,” whose history is more elaborate. It was scored for eleven instruments, and it was originally completed in 1988. Boulez then revised it in 2002, followed by an expanded and final version, completed in 2006.)

Cover of The Perfect Stranger album (fair use to illustrate the audio recording in question)

“Dérive 1” will be followed by Zappa’s “The Perfect Stranger,” the opening track on his album of the same title. It was scored for 28 musicians; and Zappa described the content as “post-Varese with frequent gestures of acknowledge towards Messiaen.” These two pieces will be preceded by a work from the following decade, Steve Mackey’s 1997 “San Francisco,” which finds a “middle ground” between Boulez and Zappa with instrumentation for electric guitar and cello.

The first half of the program will feature world premiere performances of works by two of the SFCM students in the Technology and Applied Composition Program. Specifics have not yet been finalized. These new pieces will be preceded by Missy Mazzoli’s “Tooth and Nail,” scored for solo viola and electronics. The first half will then conclude with Louis Andriessen’s “Life,” which he composed for the soundtrack of a film by Marijke van Warmerdam. That film will be screened as part of the performance.

This program will take place on Saturday, January 27, at 8 p.m. in the SFCM Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, which is located at 50 Oak Street, a short walk from the Van Ness Muni station. As usual, the program will be preceded at 7 p.m. by a How Music is Made discussion with Artistic Director Eric Dudley in conversation with participating SFCMP musicians. General admission will be $35 with a $40 VIP rate, and $15 for students. Tickets may be purchased online through a City Box Office event page.

Unduly-Neglected Prokofiev from Gil Shaham

Violinist Gil Shaham (photograph by Luke Ratray, courtesy of SFS)

Last night Davies Symphony Hall saw the return of violinist Gil Shaham in his latest regular appearance as guest artist with the San Francisco Symphony (SFS), performing under the baton of Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT). Throughout his career Shaham has maintained a consistently adventurous approach to repertoire where both selection and interpretation are concerned. Last night he chose to give the first of the week’s three performances of the lesser known of Sergei Prokofiev’s two violin concertos, Opus 19 in D major.

The score had a somewhat rocky history. Prokofiev began work on it in 1915, moved on to other projects, and only completed it during the summer of 1917. However, its premiere was delayed, particularly because of the difficulty the composer had in finding a soloist up to the task of performance. Ultimately, the premiere had to wait until Prokofiev was living in Paris, where Serge Koussevitzky presented with the Paris Opera Orchestra on October 18, 1923 with Marcel Darrieux, the orchestra’s Concertmaster, as soloist.

The concerto was not received very well by Koussevitzky’s audience, but one member of that audience was Joseph Szigeti. He was impressed enough to decide that he would add the concerto to his personal repertory. Also, as bit of irony, the concerto received its first performance (of sorts) in the Soviet Union only three days later. The violinist was Nathan Milstein; and, because an orchestra was not available, a piano reduction of the score was played by Vladimir Horowitz.

The solo part is extremely challenging, one might almost say uncompromisingly so. Nevertheless, as always seems to be the case, Shaham breezed his way through the performance without showing the least sign of intimidation. MTT was always right there with him, reinforcing the solo work with Prokofiev’s consistently imaginative approaches to his instrumental resources.

One of the more curious aspects of the instrumentation involved brass resources consisting of four horns, two trumpets, and one tuba. In the absence of any trombones, the audience could enjoy a better look at Principal Tuba Jeffrey Anderson, who clearly grasped both the comic and the lyrical in Prokofiev’s use of his instrument. As always seems to be the case when he ventures into rarely travelled repertoire, Shaham left the attentive listener with an eager desire listen to this concerto more often.

Having selected an unfamiliar concerto, Shaham then took an unconventional approach to his encore. While he tends heavily to draw upon solo Bach for his encores, last night he turned to Jean-Marie Leclair, who is probably best known for having composed twelve sonatas for two violins in two collections of six. Last night’s selection was the Gavotte movement from the fifth of the sonatas (in E minor) from the Opus 3 collection. Shaham was joined by Concertmaster Alexander Barantschik for the performance, which was as delightfully engaging as it was novel.

The “overture” for last night’s overture-concerto-symphony program was the world premiere of Steven Mackey’s “Portals, Scenes and Celebrations.” The piece was composed on an SFS commission for MTT. As Mackey observed in his notes for the program book, this was his sixth piece for MTT in the year in which the conductor will reach the age of 75 (this coming December). This was a decidedly upbeat composition that romped its way through the full extent of SFS resources and then some. (The percussion section required two small bottles of compressed air hissing out in rhythm.) Everyone seemed to be having fun with the piece (including Mackey taking his bows). In the grand scheme of things, the work may not have much staying power; but it was certainly enjoyable in its “first contact” experience.

The symphony that concluded the program was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 36 (fourth) symphony in F minor. I am never sure what to expect each time I encounter this symphony. The very way in which it was written is almost an invitation to over-indulgence, with conductors being the worst offenders in accepting that invitation. In addition, my past history with listening to MTT’s Tchaikovsky has been checkered. Back in August of 2015 he conducted the Opus 64 (fifth) symphony in E minor; and all I could hear was the ghost of music critic Julius Korngold yelling at his son Erich, “Don’t bathe!” In MTT’s interpretation, the water was spilling out of all sides of the tub.

I was therefore more that a little relieved last night to encounter a reading of Opus 36 that was more interested in the relations among the thematic subjects than in the composer’s personal agonies. Yes, the brass section pulled out all of the stops during the opening measures. However, they had plenty of time to recover their strength over the course of the symphony’s four movements. So, when the time came to establish the conclusion of the final movement as the ultimate climax, the entire ensemble was ready to rise to the occasion. MTT managed to summon up a “listener’s Tchaikovsky,” one of the rarest of birds, whose presence was greatly appreciated by this particular listener last night.

MTT and SFS to Premiere New Steven Mackey Work

Following this month of visiting conductors, Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) will return to the podium of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) to present the world premiere of a composition by Steven Mackey commissioned by SFS to honor MTT. The title of the piece is “Portals, Scenes and Celebrations;” and it is the sixth work Mackey has written for MTT. He seems to have a predilection for conjunctions, since the titles of two of the other works are “Lost and Found” and “Tuck and Roll.”

Violinist Gil Shaham (photograph by Luke Ratray, from the SFS event page for this concert)

Mackey’s piece will serve as the “overture” to a program with the “standard” overture-concerto-symphony format. The concerto soloist will be Gil Shaham, who appears regularly with SFS and has been accompanied by MTT on many occasions. The concerto selection will be Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 19 (first) violin concerto in D major. The symphony selection will be an MTT favorite, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 36 (fourth) symphony in F minor.

This concert will be given three performances, all at 8 p.m. on Thursday, February 7, Friday, February 8, and Saturday, February 9. There will be an Inside Music talk given by Peter Grunberg that will begin one hour before the performance. Doors to the Davies lobbies open fifteen minutes before the talk begins. Ticket prices range from $20 to $156. They may be purchased online through the event page for this program on the SFS Web site, by calling 415-864-6000, or by visiting the Davies Box Office, whose entrance is on the south side of Grove Street between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. The event page also has an embedded sound file of KDFC’s Rik Malone’s podcast about the Tchaikovsky symphony, as well as files of sound clips from previous SFS performances of both that symphony and the Prokofiev concerto. Flash must be enabled for both streamed content and online ticket purchases. The Box Office is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday, and two hours prior to Sunday performances.

In addition, these performances will be preceded by the next Katherine Hanrahan Open Rehearsal. This special behind-the-scenes experience begins at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, January 31, with coffee and complimentary doughnuts, followed by a half-hour introductory talk by Grunberg at 9 a.m. The rehearsal itself begins at 10 a.m.; and, of course, the pieces rehearsed are at the conductor’s discretion. General admission is $30 with $40 for reserved seats in the Premiere Orchestra section and Rear Boxes and $45 for seating in the Side Boxes and the Loge. Tickets may be purchased online through a separate event page.

New PRISM Quartet Album is More About Sounds Than Colors

A little over two months ago the PRISM Quartet released its latest album on its own XAS Records label. The group consists of four saxophonists covering the four registers of the instrument: Timothy McAllister on soprano, Zachary Shemon on alto, Matthew Levy on tenor, and Taimur Sullivan on baritone. Shemon also plays a “hookah” saxophone, which connects the mouthpiece to the instrument by seven feet of rubber hose, somewhat in the manner of the water pipe for which it is named. Based on the commissioning of new works built around the idea of musical colors, the title of the new album is Color Theory:

from Amazon.com

The result of this project is an offering of three compositions, the eight-movement suite Blue Notes and Other Clashes by Steven Mackey, “Future Lilacs” by Ken Ueno, and Stratis Minakakis’ Skiagrafies, consisting of two sections, “Traces” and “Shadow Memories,” played without interruption. The performance of each of these pieces requires the participation of additional musicians. Mackey’s piece complements the quartet of saxophonists with the four members of So Percussion, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, Jason Treuting, and Eric Cha-Beach. The remaining two tracks include Partch, an ensemble originally founded by Music Director John Schneider to perform the music of Harry Partch. As a result of his interest in the natural harmonic series, Partch built a large family of instruments all based on dividing the octave into 43 unequal tones; and Ueno and Minakakis are two composers that have pursued the use of Partch’s instruments for their own compositions. Minakakis also serves as conductor for both of these pieces; and Ueno’s work also requires an electric version of a guitar that Partch originally designed, played by Derek Johnson.

The accompanying booklet includes an extended essay by John Schaefer. In the interest of full disclosure, Schaefer’s New Sounds program on National Public Radio was my favorite source for listening when I spent the better part of the Eighties living in Stamford, Connecticut. Like Schaefer-the-announcer, Schaefer-the-writer provides excellent background that will guide the curious listener through the tracks on this album. My personal technical background, on the other hand, raises any number of questions as to whether any of these pieces have any connection to color that goes beyond choices of titles; but, quite honestly, I do not think that matters very much.

Just as Partch pursued upper harmonics in search of new sonorities, the real value of this album lies in how its three composers each pursue a similar quest for such sonorities. Ironically, they all come from a time when the received wisdom was that composers would discover such sonorities by exploring the affordances of electronic hardware and computer software. There is thus something at least slightly ironic about the back-to-instruments aesthetic behind his album. Beyond the irony, however, is a vast landscape of new ways to approach listening; and I, for one, would be happy to see other composers stake out other areas in that landscape on the basis of what Mackey, Ueno, and Minakakis have achieved.

From a personal point of view, however, I would have to say that I was particularly drawn to “Future Lilacs.” To be fair, however, I should add that I have had the good fortune to listen to Ueno as a performer, in addition to listening to performances of his music. As a performer he has been particularly interested in the exploration of upper harmonics through different Asian throat singing techniques. As a result, I warmed very quickly to “Future Lilacs” when I realized that the melodic contour of upper harmonics coming out of Johnson’s guitar work amounted to an instrumental version of those throat singing techniques.

I was also impressed by how the PRISM players could control their own intonation to align with the tones produced by Partch’s instruments. After all, if a saxophone is capable of rich vibrato, there is no reason why the central axis of that vibrato should be confined to the frequencies of equal-tempered tuning. The members of PRISM clearly appreciated that acute listening was rigorously necessary when playing with Partch instruments. I have no idea how much rehearsal time this required; but the resulting sonorities in both the Ueno and Minakakis pieces were instrumental (pun intended) in guiding the listener through each of their respective logical paths.

Mackey’s piece, on the other hand, was a series of short takes. All of them involve PRISM working within the context of different landscapes of percussion sonorities. Most of these were grounded in a playful wit, most evident when the “Mottled March” veers off in the direction of the march at the beginning of Igor Stravinsky’s “L’Histoire du soldat.” Still, brevity is at the soul of that wit. Mackey had spot-on intuition for when the listener would arrive at the I-get-it moment, meaning that he knew when it was time to move on to the next piece in his suite.