Yamada Conducts Walton for Debut Album

Kazuki Yamada is the latest conductor to serve as Music Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO). He began his tenure in 2018, having succeeded Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla in that position. This Friday will see the release of his first album recorded with CBSO.

Kazuki Yamada on the cover of his debut album with Deutsche Grammophon

He decided that he would make his recording debut with Deutsche Grammophon, devoting the entire album to music by William Walton. Seven of the eight tracks account for the first and second symphonies (in that order), the first consisting of four movements and the second structured around three, the last of which is an elaborate passacaglia with a set of variations followed by a fugue and a concluding coda.

For my generation, Walton was a major (perhaps the major, following the death of Ralph Vaughan Williams) British composer. His repertoire was engagingly diverse, as adept with vocal performance as with his instrumentalists. I know him best for his 1931 cantata Belshazzar’s Feast. Unless I am mistaken, I have Eugene Ormandy to thank for bringing that composition to my attention when he performed it leading the Philadelphia Orchestra.

It should therefore not surprise readers that listening to this album was a nostalgic experience. Mind you, I do not think I had listened to either of the two symphonies; but I had no trouble encountering any number of familiar thematic tropes. The same can be said for the opening track, which serves as an overture of sorts. Indeed, one could call it an overture of “more than sorts,” since Walton composed it for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The context of the coronation brought about the compositions name, “Orb and Sceptre,” qualified with the subtitle “Coronation March.”

Fortunately, at least some of Walton’s works have found a place in the repertoire of the San Francisco Symphony. In recent years there seems to have been an enthusiastic bias for the composer’s viola concerto. Geraldine Walther may have triggered this bias back in 1997, when she led the viola section. Then, almost exactly two years ago, her first-chair successor, Jonathan Vinocour, performed the concerto for a program entitled Inspirations: Film/Classical. (Walton’s ghost may well have nodded in agreement with that choice of title!)

I hope that San Franciscans that have followed Walther and Vinocour might wish to “take the leap” to explore how Walton could handle a symphony as well as a concerto. He also had enough of a sense of humor to contribute to the Hoffnung Music Festival. In the spirit of Gerald Hoffnung’s sense of humor, Walton conducted the orchestra in the Royal Festival Hall with a fly swatter. The performance was a very short excerpt from Walton’s oratorio Belshazzar’s Feast. Indeed, the excerpt was so short that it consisted of only a single chord, during which the chorus sang “Slain!”

It goes without saying that Yamada’s debut album is much more serious! Nevertheless, there is no shortage of engaging expressiveness in both the symphonies and “Orb and Sceptre.” According to the Amazon.com Web page, the album is due for release this coming Friday; and, as most readers probably expect, that page can currently be used for processing pre-orders.

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)!

Box Set of a Conductor Who Deserved Better

Back cover of the box showing the original album sleeves of all of the recording in the collection being discussed (from the Amazon.com Web page)

The full title of the latest box set to be released by Sony Classical is Louis Lane Conducts the Cleveland Orchestra – The Complete Epic and Columbia Album Collection. Lane joined at Cleveland Orchestra as an apprentice conductor to George Szell in 1947. He then “went through the ranks” through a series of promotions: Assistant Conductor in 1955, Associate Conductor in 1960, and Resident Conductor in 1970. Many probably know the stories about how Szell could not tolerate the pianist Glenn Gould, so Lane conducted Gould’s performances in Cleveland.

Sadly, none of those performances were included in the new Sony Classical box set. Indeed, only the last four of the fourteen CDs in this collection cite Lane as conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra. The other thirteen cite him as leading either The Cleveland Pops Orchestra or The Cleveland Sinfonietta. Mind you, there is more than a little substance in those last four CDs. One of them accounts for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 334 divertimento in D major, which extends to six movements in duration. Another is the complete ballet score for The Creatures of Prometheus, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 43. Where dance history is concerned, this is a bit of an outlier, with choreography that predated first the Italians and then the Russians. A more contemporary approach to ballet can be found in the album of suites from “The Wise Virgins” (arrangements of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach by William Walton) and “The Good-Humored Ladies” (Vincenzo Tommasini’s orchestrations of the keyboard sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti). Finally, there is an interesting “first symphonies” album, coupling Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 1 in C minor with Franz Schubert’s D. 82 (first completed) symphony in D major.

For better or worse, none of the preceding CDs in the collection are in my wheelhouse. I suspect that the collection of arrangements of tunes from Broadway shows is the most cringe-inducing, but I have no trouble with listeners that would take that CD to be their favorite! Also, there are opportunities to listen to the works of composers who are now pretty much forgotten, such as Arthur Foote, Morton Gould, and Walter Piston. Indeed, if I have any affection at all for the pops genre, it would be for Gould’s “American Salute,” which I played in high school!

Nevertheless, I do not see myself returning to this collection with much frequency!

SFCM Bungles Opening Night Video Stream

As usually seems to be the case, last night the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) launched its season of concert and recital programming with a performance by the SFCM Orchestra led by conductor Edwin Outwater. There was much to engage the attentive listener in the program that had been prepared. Furthermore, the concert (which was described as sold out on its event page) marked the first livestream offering of the fall semester. This technology emerged as a means of making performances available during the early stages of the pandemic; and it has now become a “regular item” for many of the programs. However, as is always the case, technology demands training; and, while the SFCM Orchestra could not have been better prepared for last night’s performance, those responsible for the streaming technology were sadly ill-equipped.

Isabel Tannenbaum playing William Walton’s viola concerto (screen shot from last night’s video stream)

Fortunately, the problems only affected the video, meaning that the music that Outwater prepared for this program was given a highly satisfying audio account to do justice to the performance by the ensemble itself. The program followed the usual overture-concerto-symphony structure, except that both concerto and symphony had its own “introducing overture.” The concerto was William Walton’s viola concerto (one of the few opportunities to listen to a recording of Yehudi Menuhin playing the viola). The soloist was Isabel Tannenbaum, and her chemistry with Outwater could not have been better. Walton also had a keen ear for rich instrumentation, and Outwater knew exactly how to balance all of those sonorities against Tannenbaum’s solo work. The “overture” for this concerto was Anna Clyne’s “Masquerade,” perhaps suggesting that one good Brit deserves another! Nevertheless, her overall command of resources never rose to Walton’s capacity for inventive and compelling sonorities.

The symphony which concluded the program was Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 10, his first symphony, composed in the key of F minor during his student days. This is an impressive undertaking, particularly in light of the composer’s age. More importantly, however, it provided the perfect opportunity to experience the diversity of instrumental skills commanded by the Orchestra members, all managed expertly by Outwater’s conducting. The “overture” for this symphony was Mikhail Glinka’s settings of two Russian folk songs, “Kamarinskaya.” The performance was led by student conductor Chih-Yao Chang.

True to the music’s “folk” sources, there was a more than generous number of repetitions of each of the two song themes. Diversity dwelled in the instrumentation, and Chang knew how to evoke the subtleties of all of those sonorities in ways that would make all of the repetitions on the score pages come across as less repetitive. Unfortunately, for those of us watching the video, the camera cues were not always pointing at the right instruments at the right time.

This brings us to the primary down-side of the evening. Beyond the usual problems of cues in the wrong places, there was an unexplained (and aggravating) annoyance of the blurring of sharp images. This back-and-forth alternating of the blurred and the sharp took place during the entire performance, meaning that, even during the intermission, no one seemed capable of solving the problem.

The fact is that, no matter how much experience anyone has with personal video cameras, a video account of a concert performance is a sophisticated undertaking requiring a plethora of technical skills to supplement auditory attentiveness. I have built up my own catalog of streamed performances, almost all of which have been more than merely satisfying. Last night, however, not only failed to do justice to the performers but, for particularly attentive video viewers, also undermined the very process of listening to the music.

SOMM Celebrates Walton Centennial

Cover of the album being discussed with Michael Ayrton’s 1948 portrait of William Walton (courtesy of Naxos of America)

One week from today, SOMM Recordings will release an album entitled William Walton: A Centenary Celebration. This has nothing to do with the dates of either Walton’s birth or death. Rather, it marks the 100th anniversary of the first performance of Façade, an “entertainment” setting 21 eccentric poems by Edith Sitwell, given rhythmic recitation reflected by music that Walton composed for a chamber ensemble, along with an opening fanfare. This is coupled with the music that Walton composed for the film that Laurence Olivier directed (and starred in) based on the text of William Shakespeare’s play Henry V. On this recording all of the Walton segments, arranged by Edward Watson, are interleaved with recitations of Shakespeare’s words, all delivered by Kevin Whatley. As usual, Amazon.com is processing pre-orders for this new recording.

This is a useful document of music that is seldom performed and probably just as rarely recorded. Back in my student days, I was fortunate enough to attend a (free) concert performance of Façade at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. By that time I had listened to a recording, so I was prepared for the outrageous eccentricities of the texts. However, there was a rather strong streak of conservatism among those that visited the Gardner Museum; and I have to confess to prankish amusement in watching them squirm at the outrageousness of the texts and the “pop” rhetoric of the music.

Nevertheless, 21 is a rather large number of poems; and 40 minutes amounts to a considerable amount of time to spend sitting and listening to them, however engaging the music may be. Experiencing Façade in its entirety cultivates an appreciation for the much shorter instruments-only suite that Walton extracted from the original score. To be fair, however, this particular recording brings two reciters to the Sitwell texts, Roderick Williams and Tamsin Dalley. Their interplay often reinforces the humor in those texts with more dimensions than might be provided by a single reciter. Nevertheless, even that dose of dramatics still cannot contend adequately with the overall 40-minute duration.

The Olivier Henry V also figured significantly during my student days. Quite honestly, I have lost track of the number of times I have seen it; and the impact was such that I have never been able to stomach Kenneth Branagh’s attempt to follow in Olivier’s footsteps. Nevertheless, the impact of Olivier’s direction was so strong that I must confess that, when I listened to the suite on this album, even with the recitations from Shakespeare to guide my way, I realized that none of the music was familiar to me. This was clearly a situation in which “incidental music” was truly incidental! As a result, there is little to draw me to Watson’s efforts to turn that incidental music into a concert listening experience.

Omni Foundation to Host Video Shoot of Su Meng

Readers may recall that this past May San Francisco Performances (SFP) and the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts presented video streams of three great classical guitarists, each performing from his/her current home country. The performers were David Russell, based in Palencia, Spain, Marko Topchii, in Ukrainian Kiev, and Xuefei Yang, playing in the fifteenth-century Zhizhu Temple in Beijing, China. Today I discovered that these videos are still available for viewing along with eight additional videos on the Online Series Web page on the Omni Foundation Web site.

The videos shared with SFP are part of a series entitled Omni On Location with recordings filmed from historic sites around the world. There is also a second series entitled Live from St. Marks. As the title suggests, this consists of concerts filmed at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, which is a frequent venue for Omni recitals. These videos are made with the soloist performing before a limited audience. Tickets must be purchased. However, seating is not reserved, meaning that those with tickets can situate themselves in areas that are not dominated by the video crew.

Su Meng (courtesy of the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts)

Late yesterday afternoon, Omni announced the first video shoot of the new series. The recitalist will be Su Meng, who is on the faculty at both the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. Born in China in Qingdao, Su began her guitar studies at the age of five. She has won first prize in numerous international competitions around the world and holds both a Master’s degree and an Artist Diploma from the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University, where she studied under Manuel Barrueco. Barrueco also encouraged her to partner with guitarist Wang Yameng, leading to the formation of the Beijing Guitar Duo. In that capacity they were Guitarists-in-Residence for SFP between 2011 and 2015.

For her Omni video shoot, Su has prepared four “number-based” compositions. She will begin with three of the five movements that Astor Piazzolla collected under the title Cinco Piezas (five pieces). This will be followed by Marc Neikrug’s Three Pieces for Guitar. She will then turn to Seven Desires by Tan Dun, who was born in the Hunan province of China but is now Dean of the Bard College Conservatory of Music. Su’s program will conclude with a set of five bagatelles collected by William Walton.

The video shoot will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, September 17. All tickets are being sold for $55, and only 50 will be sold. The best way to determine if tickets are still available is to call 415-242-4500. In addition Omni has created an event page, which includes a video of Su playing the toccata composed by Sun Wukong.

“Rare Documents” of Herbert von Karajan

courtesy of Naxos of America

Towards the end of this past November, the Italian-based record label Urania Records (not to be confused with the American Urania label, which is now a property of Warner Communications) released a two-CD album of recordings of Herbert von Karajan entitled Rare Documents. Each of the two CDs couples an extended multi-movement composition with a shorter single-movement offering. Three of the four compositions were recorded in Rome in December of 1953, while the second of the shorter pieces, “Antifone” by Hans Werner Henze, was recorded in Berlin ten years later.

Between 1938 and 1989 Karajan was responsible for some one thousand studio recordings. His “comfort zone” was very much in the domain of familiar repertoire. Rather than explore territory that was too adventurous, he tended to cultivate the diversity of interpretations of a well-known composition through multiple recording sessions. On the other hand the four pieces in this collection were recorded only once; and, because Karajan was not happy with the sound quality, they were never released in his lifetime. Indeed, the works are so unfamiliar that only one of them previously had a place in my collection. This was William Walton’s first symphony in B-flat minor, which is the first selection in the Walton Conducts Walton album produced by The Walton Edition.

Karajan’s Walton recording was made in Rome on December 5, 1953 at a session which also included recording “Musica da Concerto,” composed for viola and string orchestra by Giorgio Federica Ghedini. Walton’s symphony was composed between 1931 and 1934; and, given the amount of time that Karajan spent with the Philharmonia Orchestra during the decade that followed World War II, it is easy to imagine that he would have become aware of at least some of Walton’s work. Ghedini, on the other hand, was not very well known outside his native Italy; and, in all probability, Karajan’s session with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma led to the world premiere recording of Ghedini’s concerto.

Similarly, the subsequent Rome session on December 21 was probably the world premiere recording of the setting of the Requiem text by the Swiss composer Heinrich Sutermeister. The vocal work was primarily choral with solos for both soprano and bass. The soprano on this recording is Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, and I do not think I have encountered her singing pitches as high as those Sutermeister required in any other recording that she made. The bass part, which tends to be more forgiving, was sung by Giorgio Tadeo, whom I had not previously encountered.

The Henze recording is likely to be the most eyebrow-raising. “Antifone” was composed in 1960. There is a prodigious eclecticism in the diversity of approaches to composition that Henze took, and “Antifone” may be taken as representative of the thornier side of his styles. It is hard to imagine Karajan working with edges sharper than those he had encountered in Igor Stravinsky, but he definitely gave Henze a fair shake. Given how seldom Henze’s music is encountered these days, Karajan’s interpretation of “Antifone” definitely makes this album “worth the price of admission,” as P. T. Barnum might have put it.

SFCM Cello Students in Recital

Last night the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) presented a live-stream of a recital shared by four students in the cello department. The program, which was provided on the Vimeo Web page hosting the stream (and now hosting the recorded version of the performance), made no mention of the graduating year of each of the students; and, even more disappointingly, the names of the accompanying pianists were omitted. Apparently, “virtual” programs have not yet caught up to the past standards of program sheets, at least where students are concerned.

Over the past years I have taken different approaches to writing about student recitals. I feel that, since SFCM is an educational institution, it makes sense to keep track of what the students are doing, rather than focus entirely on faculty. At the same time, I have always tended to approach student recitals as works-in-progress, even when considerable progress may be appreciated. As a result I tend to pay more attention to repertoire choices, rather than diving into details of technique and expressiveness.

From that point of view, the high point of last night was the decision by Federico Strand Ramirez to play the first movement of William Walton’s cello concerto. Walton wrote this piece on a commission by Gregor Piatigorsky, who gave the world premiere performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Munch on January 25, 1957. RCA then arranged recording sessions in Boston’s Symphony Hall; and that recording is included in the Gregor Piatigorsky: The Art of the Cello anthology.

Listening to Ramirez’ interpretation of the first movement, I found myself wondering why there have been so few occasions to encounter either performances or recordings of this concerto. The thematic material is boldly expressive, while affording many opportunities for technical display. My only real regret was that the execution was limited to accompaniment by piano. Walton had a keen ear for instrumental coloration, and his technical skill is immediately evident in the opening measures that precede the cello’s entrance. I was thus left hoping that Ramirez would not only extend his mastery to the entire concerto but also have the opportunity to play it with the Conservatory Orchestra.

The other concerto on last night’s program was given a “tag team” approach. Abigail Monroe played the opening movement of Robert Schumann’s Opus 129 concerto in A minor, and Daniel Yoo played the remaining two movements. One could appreciate the technical skills of both students, but there was a sense that both of them were still coming to terms with how to approach the often erratic qualities of the composer’s expressiveness. More straightforward was Julian Bennett’s account of the first movement of César Franck’s FWV 8 sonata in A major, originally composed for violin.

Where disappointments are concerned, I prefer not to call out students by name. Suffice it to say that the Courante movement from Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1010 solo cello suite in E-flat major was the least satisfying account of the evening. Regular readers of this site should know by now my conviction that, whenever Bach wrote a dance movement, he had a clear sense of the steps of that dance in the back of his head. While we may never know just what those steps were, the approach to rhythm in the execution of this movement was not even a vague hypothesis of what those steps could be. All that mattered was putting out a convincing execution of each of the notes. On that account, however, there was disappointment in the lack of any awareness of the underlying bass line, even if most of the notes of that line were implicit.

Piatigorsky’s Concertante Recordings on RCA

Jascha Heifetz (left) with Gregor Piatigorsky (right) on the cover of the RCA box set of their joint recordings (from the Amazon.com Web page for the collection)

As promised a week ago, in considering the RCA portion of the collection Gregor Piatigorsky: The Art of the Cello, I am addressing the concertante and chamber music performances separately. Of the four concertante pieces that Piatigorsky had recorded for Columbia, only Max Bruch’s Opus 47 “Kol Nidrei” (which had been coupled with Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 104 cello concerto in B minor) does not appear in the RCA catalog. Instead, the Dvořák concerto is the only work on the RCA album, performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) conducted by Charles Munch.

However, the absence of Bruch is compensated by a recording or Ernest Bloch’s “Schelomo,” also with Munch conducting the BSO. As Bruch’s Opus 47 had provided an “afterthought” following Dvořák, the Bloch selection follows a performance of William Walton’s cello concerto (also with Munch and the BSO). Thus, while Columbia opted for a “pairing” of late nineteenth-century rhetoric, RCA chose to link together two decidedly modernist (but still unabashedly tonal) composers.

Indeed, in my own listening experience, Walton and Bloch have one thing in common. Every time I listen to a composition by either of them, either in concert or on recording, I wonder why I do not hear more of their music! Unless I am mistaken, this Piatigorsky recording was my first encounter with Walton’s concerto, even though it has been recorded by the likes of both Yo Yo Ma and Steven Isserlis.

Bloch, on the other hand, gets a bit more respect, at least here in San Francisco, where he used to live; and “Schelomo” has become a concert favorite. Indeed, I have to wonder whether it was included on the Walton album by RCA as a marketing “lure.” “Schelomo” would attract buyers, who would then get Walton as part of the bargain!

Another marketing tactic may be responsible for the one oddity among the concertante selections. This is the recording of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 219 “Turkish” concerto in A major. Those who know their Mozart will immediately recognize that he never composed a cello concerto and that K. 219 is a violin concerto. Sure enough, the concerto soloist is Jascha Heifetz; and the album is actually titled The Heifetz-Piatigorsky Concerts.

However, Piatigorsky is on the recording. He is leading the cello section of the accompanying chamber orchestra. Since no conductor is named, we can assume that Heifetz is also leading that ensemble. To be fair, the cello part is not particularly rich in this concerto; and the RCA recording team did not give it very much respect. Nevertheless, in some (slightly warped) literal sense of the words, this is a recording that Piatigorsky made for RCA!

A more “legitimate” conjunction of Heifetz and Piatigorsky can be found on the 1960 recording of Johannes Brahms’ Opus 102 “Double” concerto in A minor with Alfred Wallenstein conducting the “RCA Symphony Orchestra” (presumably a “pick-up” gathering of Hollywood studio musicians who happened to be available at the time). I know this recording well through my RCA Heifetz Collection, but I still can’t get enough of it. I continue to find it a valuable benchmark for the interpretation of this concerto on both technical and rhetorical grounds.

On the other hand, this is also the one selection that warrants two distinct RCA recordings. The other is much earlier (1951); and the violinist is Nathan Milstein. The performance is of The Robin Hood Dell Orchestra of Philadelphia (members of the Philadelphia Orchestra and others, who would give outdoor concerts during the summer months) conducted by Fritz Reiner. (The recording, fortunately, was made indoors at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia.) While the technology is weaker, this is also a thoroughly well-conceived interpretation. (By way of context, when Heifetz recorded the Brahms violin concerto in D major, Opus 77 for RCA, he performed with the Chicago Symphony conducted by Reiner.)

My high opinion of Reiner also extends to his interpretations of the music of Richard Strauss, as I had observed in writing about Piatigorsky’s Columbia recordings. He does not return for the RCA recording of Richard Strauss’ Opus 35 tone poem “Don Quixote.” Piatigorsky made that recording with Munch and the BSO in 1953. (Reiner would make his RCA recording with the Chicago in 1958 with Antonio Janigro.) As the reader should probably guess by now, Piatigorsky had a good working relationship with Munch and his Bostonians. This was a time when the BSO took great pride in its brass section, and it does not take much listening to this Munch recording to see why!

Stunningly Delightful Merola Voices Undermined by Poor Direction

Last night in the Concert Hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the first full-length fully-staged production in the 60th anniversary season of the Merola Opera Program was given the first of two performances. The program was a triple bill of one-act operas, each involving only three characters. The result was an opportunity to appreciate extended passages of deft solo and duo work by selected Merolini. These opportunities were relatively evenly distributed across three highly varied selections, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s “La serva padrona” (the servant mistress), Gustav Holst’s Mahabharata-based “Savitri,” and William Walton’s “The Bear,” based on a play of the same title by Anton Chekhov.

Where vocal talent was involved, it was clear that the audience was in good hands as soon as bass-baritone Daniel Noyola sang the opening notes of the Pergolesi opera. He clearly appreciated the buffo nature of Uberto, master of the title character, Serpina. Vocally, soprano Jana McIntyre’s Serpina could not have been a better match in that role. Both vocalists had a solid sense of pitch matched with the light delivery so necessary in comic opera from any century. Sadly, this sometimes involved prevailing over Christopher Ocasek’s conducting, which not only had lapses in its lightness of touch but also never quite realized that “da capo” does not mean “do it exactly the same way again.”

Matters were not helped by the decision of Director Peter Kazaras to pay more attention to the mimed role of the servant Vespone (bass-baritone David Weigel) than to exploring different ways to use the da capo structure to flesh out the personalities of the leading roles. Vespone came across as sort of an early ancestor of Harpo Marx; and, to his credit, Weigel’s mime technique was irresistible. Indeed, it was so irresistible that it frequently felt as if Kazaras was frustrated that both Serpina and Uberto kept getting in the way of his contrivances.

Holst’s opera fared much better. The narrative involves the young wife Savitri (soprano Kelsea Webb) outwitting Yama, the god of Death (Weigel, singing this time), to save the life of her husband Satyavan (tenor Addison Marlor). Kazaras used both the program book and the projected titles to establish a relationship between this narrative and the tremendous number of British casualties that arose from the Battle of the Somme during the First World War.

Visually, the action was translated from the mythic world of Mahabharata to an English country house. (Think Brideshead.) While Kazaras’ concept was ingenious, the extended opening in silence depicting Savitri writing at a vast table did little to establish her character. Ultimately, both male roles were much more sharply conceived and rendered, which sadly blunted the reason why Savitri’s character was strong enough to challenge Death and prevail. Weigel’s depiction of Death was the more compelling, even if he had more than a little trouble maintaining pitch in his opening a cappella solo.

Where “The Bear” was concerned, problems began with the opera itself. Working with Paul Dehn, Walton conceived a libretto which repeated itself far too often. The result was a sad disservice to Chekhov, whose original narrative was so compact that it fit both neatly and effectively into a half-hour episode of Have Gun – Will Travel (complete with commercial interruptions). Conceivably, Kazaras could have compensated for the text’s shortcomings by fleshing out the intersecting trajectories of the title character (Smirnov, sung by bass-baritone Cody Quattlebaum) and the “eternal widow” Popova (mezzo Ashley Dixon) with a bit of variety in the details. Both of these vocalists were impressive, but there was a limit to how many times one could sit through their exercising the same schtick over and over again.

Casting Announced for Merola’s Triple Bill

As was announced at the end last month, the first full-length fully-staged production in the 60th anniversary season of the Merola Opera Program will be a triple bill of one-act operas. Each of those operas involves the reduced resources of either two or three vocalists. Casting has now been announced, so this is the time to review the specifics of the three offerings.

The first of these is Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s “La serva padrona” (the servant mistress). This was originally written as a comic intermezzo for his three-act opera seria Il prigionier superbo (the proud prisoner), which was first performed in Naples in 1733. The intermezzo turned out to be far more successful than the opera seria and has subsequently enjoyed a life of its own. It involves the familiar battle of wits between a cunning young servant maid (soprano Jana McIntyre) and her aging master (bass-baritone Daniel Noyola).

The second opera will be Gustav Holst’s “Sāvitri,” based on an episode from the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata, known as the story of Savitri and Satyavan. It involves the young woman Savitri (soprano Kelsea Webb) and the foreseen death of her husband Satyavan (tenor Addison Marlor). On the day of his predicted death, Savitri accompanies Satyavan into the forest and there confronts Yama, the god of Death (bass-baritone David Weigel). Through her skill in outwitting Yama, the life of her husband is spared.

The final opera is William Walton’s “The Bear,” based on a play of the same title by Anton Chekhov. (Those of my generation may recall that this play was adapted for an episode of Have Gun Will Travel.) It involves the grieving widow Yelena Ivanovna Popova (mezzo Ashley Dixon) having to contend with Grigory Stepanovich Smirnov (baritone Cody Quattlebaum), one of her late husband’s boorish creditors. The result is a raucous battle of both wits and manners. Noyola will return to the stage to sing the role of Popova’s servant Luka.

All three of these operas will be staged by Peter Kazaras, currently Director of Opera and Music Theater at the University of California at Los Angeles. The conductor will be Christopher Ocasek, who is currently part of the San Francisco Opera conducting staff and has worked with Kazaras in the past. This production will be given two performances at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 20, and 2 p.m. on Saturday, July 22.

These performances will take place in the Concert Hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, located at 50 Oak Street, a short walk from the Van Ness Muni station. Ticket prices will be $70 and $50. Tickets are being sold by the Box Office in the outer lobby of the War Memorial Opera House at 301 Van Ness Avenue, on the northwest corner of Grove Street. The Box Office may also be reached by telephoning 415-864-3330. The Box Office is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Friday. Tickets for both performances are also available online.

Tickets are Now on Sale for the Two Merola Opera Productions

As was announced this past February, the concert season of the 60th anniversary season of the Merola Opera Program will get under way at the beginning of July with the annual Schwabacher Summer Concert. This is a sufficiently popular event that all tickets have already been sold. This thus seems like an appropriate time to provide the dates and times of the two full-length fully-staged programs of the season, for which tickets are still available. The basic summary is still as it was announced in February:

1. Thursday, July 20, 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, July 22, 2 p.m.: The first full-length program will be a triple bill of one-act operas: Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s “La serva padrona” (the servant mistress), Gustav Holst’s “Sāvitri,” and William Walton’s “The Bear.”
2. Thursday, August 3, 7:30 p.m. and Saturday August 5, 2 p.m.: The second full-length program will be Gioachino Rossini’s two-act opera La Cenerentola (Cinderella).

All performances will take place in the Concert Hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, located at 50 Oak Street, a short walk from the Van Ness Muni station. Ticket prices will be $70 and $50. Tickets are being sold by the Box Office in the outer lobby of the War Memorial Opera House at 301 Van Ness Avenue, on the northwest corner of Grove Street. The Box Office may also be reached by telephoning 415-864-3330. The Box Office is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Friday. Tickets for all four performances are also available online. Each of the programs has its own event page on the San Francisco Opera Web site, and the hyperlinks to those Web pages are given according to the specific dates above. Each of those event pages then has separate hyperlinks for purchasing tickets for the evening and matinee performances.

Merola Opera Program Grants its First Commission to Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer

Yesterday morning the Merola Opera Program announced its first-ever commission of a new operatic work, which will be given its world premiere performance by Merola Opera Program artists in San Francisco in the summer of 2019. This year will mark the 60th anniversary season of the program; and, over the course of those 60 years, the training program, named in honor of the founder of the San Francisco Opera (SFO), Gaetano Merola, has cultivated an international reputation within the global community of those committed to making and performing operas. Every summer Merola participants are screened by SFO; and the best of them “graduate” to enter SFO’s Adler Fellowship Program, a major opportunity to perform in SFO productions. While most of the participants are vocalists, the program also admits several musicians to learn about coaching and accompaniment; and training in stage direction is also part of the curriculum.

All aspects of the program will come into play during the summer of 2019 to prepare the first production of the first opera to be commissioned by the Merola Opera Program. The commission has been granted to composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer. The title of the opera that they will create will be If I Were You, the English translation of the title of the 1947 novel by Julien Green, Si j’étais vous…. Green was born to American parents in Paris in 1900, and all of his writing was in French. That includes nineteen volumes of a diary covering the period from 1919 to 1998, a four-volume autobiography, a prodigious number of novels (including a trilogy entitled Dixie that reflected Green’s sympathy for the Confederacy during the Civil War), and at least one screenplay. That screenplay will probably interest opera lovers, since it was for the French film La dame de pique (the queen of spades), an adaptation by director Léonard Keigel of the short story by Alexander Pushkin that inspired Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s opera of the same name. (Keigel decided not to use Tchaikovsky’s music in his film, preferring works by Franz Schubert instead.)

For its time Si j’étais vous… was a pioneering effort to deal with the mind-body problem that had become a major area of study by twentieth-century philosophers, as well as Carl Jung’s approach to the relationship between behavior and personality through his theory of archetypes. In Green’s novel the protagonist, Fabian Hart, makes a deal with the devil through which he is granted the power to transfer his soul into the physical bodies of others. This poses an intriguing problem in creating an opera. The bodies “invaded” by Hart’s soul can be distinguished by different vocal ranges; but that means that each singer will have to distinguish when that character is “inhabited” by Hart’s soul and when it is not. The result may well entail some fascinating new approaches to how character traits may be captured in music, regardless of the words that are being sung.

The Merola Opera Program also used this announcement to outline the plans for the coming summer season. Participants will include seven sopranos, four mezzos, four tenors, two baritones, and six bass-baritones, as well as five pianists serving as apprentice coaches and one apprentice stage director. In addition, all public events have been announced. Further details will be forthcoming for all of them. However, for save-the-date purposes, the basic plan for the summer events in San Francisco will be as follows:

• Sunday, June 11, 8 p.m.: The 60th Anniversary Gala and Concert will take place with performances given in Herbst Theatre.
• Thursday, July 6, 7:30 p.m.: The annual Schwabacher Summer Concert of staged scenes will take place at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM).
• Thursday, July 20, 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, July 22, 2 p.m.: The first full-length program, performed at SFCM, will be a triple bill of one-act operas: Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s “La serva padrona” (the servant mistress), Gustav Holst’s “Sāvitri,” and William Walton’s “The Bear.”
• Thursday, August 3, 7:30 p.m. and Saturday August 5, 2 p.m.: The second full-length program, also performed at SFCM, will be Gioachino Rossini’s two-act opera La Cenerentola (Cinderella).
• Saturday, August 19, 7:30 p.m.: The season will conclude with the annual Merola Grand Finale at the War Memorial Opera House, followed by a reception.

Adventures in the Archives

Where serious listening is concerned, EMI has one of the most interesting collections of archives that one is likely to encounter. I first appreciated this back when I was living in Singapore and accumulated, one by one, the three volumes (each with three CDs) of The Elgar Edition, which is the best (only?) recorded document of Edward Elgar as conductor of his own music. Amazon.com lists all of these as "Currently unavailable," which is too bad from a historical point of view but understandable in the context of the limitations of recording technology. Recently I have used my Examiner.com pulpit to wax enthusiastic over the more recent releases of the complete recordings that Pablo Casals made for EMI, with particular emphasis on the documents of his trio performances with Alfred Cortot and Jacques Thibaud, and the even more exhaustive Mstislav Rostropovich collection, which includes not only all of his EMI sessions but also the recordings he brought with him when he left the Soviet Union. Both the Casals and Rostropovich boxes are still available; and serious listeners have much to learn from both of them, particularly in comparing their respective approaches to the Johann Sebastian Bach suites for unaccompanied cello.

More recently, EMI has been putting out 2-CD sets for those with an interest in archives but a more limited budget. Thus, the Casals recordings of the Bach suites are available as a separate package, which is also the case for the Rostropovich recordings. Similarly, the first two CDs in The Walton Edition, which feature William Walton conducting his violin and viola concertos (both with Yehudi Menuhin as soloist), his first symphony, and "Belshazzar's Feast," are available separately. More interesting, however, is the 2-CD collection of the music of Arnold Schoenberg as interpreted by three conductors with three different points of view, John Barbirolli, Daniel Barenboim, and Simon Rattle.

I have been reflecting on this packaging because I have spent almost three months facing the prospect of writing an Examiner.com piece for the release of such a collection for Iannis Xenakis. This composer has been on my mind ever since I encountered a copy of Musiques Formelles in the library during my student days, which left me so perplexed that I wondered if the only way I would be able to get my head around it would be to translate it into English. I was far from alone in my puzzlement. Even George Balanchine, who probably encountered the same vinyl recording I had purchased (now in a CD version), seems to have decided that the only way to understand "Metastasis" and "Pithoprakta" would be to translate them into choreography. I never got beyond seeing that choreography in rehearsal, which left me with only two impressions. The first was that Balanchine seemed more influenced by the diagrams in Musiques Formelles than he had been by the music; and the second was intense sympathy for the rehearsal pianist trying to get a piano to play an approximation (possibly Balanchine's) of what Xenakis was demanding of a full orchestra. My procrastination in producing my own English version of Xenakis' texts was eventually rewarded by the efforts of Christopher Butchers, who took on the task with Xenakis' cooperation; and in 1971 Indiana University Press published (under the title Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition, now available in a revised edition by Pendragon) an English version of the six essays in Musiques Formelles along with three more recent ones. By the time I purchased this volume I was teaching computer science at the University of Pennsylvania and found myself "volunteered" to prepare a seminar session on Xenakis. This turned out to be little more than an explanation of how Xenakis was using flow charts and what was lurking in the FORTRAN printouts contained in the book.

The fact is that this kind of algorithmic approach to formalism was very popular half a century ago. Pierre Boulez had indulged in experiments of his own, although, ironically, the task fell to György Ligeti to document the actual algorithms in Die Reihe. (Was he, too, "volunteered" for this task?) However, where Boulez was concerned, I could still address the nature of the listening experience without descending into all of the algorithmic detail; and I have yet to make such a claim about Xenakis. This is why, in this case, I really did volunteer to write about the recent EMI release. I know from having listened to the Harmonia Mundi CD of his Oresteïa that he can be a very visceral composer; but this composition may be an exception, because he was working with a dramatic narrative, rather than with formalism for its own sake. All I know for certain is that my current plan is to avoid any consultation of his writings while engaged in listening to the EMI CDs. I have no idea what will result, but I think I have finally reached the point where I am ready to undertake the adventure.