LCCE Features Flutist Stacey Pelinka

LCCE flutist Stacey Pelinka (from the Web page for the Soft-Spoken concert)

Last night the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble (LCCE) lauched its 2020–2021 (28th) season with a program showcasing its flutist Stacey Pelinka. The repertoire reached as far back as the twelfth-century abbess Hildegard of Bingen all the way to the immediate present of a world premiere performance of David Dominique’s “Soft-Spoken.” The title of that composition was also the title of the entire program. As of this writing, it appears that the broadcast of this program through YouTube has not been archived for subsequent viewing.

It appears that all of the performances and introductory material were pre-recorded, which gave the overall presentation a bit more polish than one tends to encounter through such YouTube offerings. Pelinka was joined by only three other performers, violinist (and Artistic Director) Anna Presler, violist (and composer) Kurt Rohde, and cellist Leighton Fong. The performances were recorded at the Women’s Faculty Club on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. The principal room of the building was large enough to allow for social distancing; and, because of the demands of the flute, Pelinka was the only performer without a mask.

The most interesting of the offerings were two “remixes” composed by Rohde. I do not know if he coined the term. However, his notes for the program book provided an excellent account of how a remix differs from an arrangement:

Remixes are contortions, distortions, re-imaginings. For me, a remix is the point of view/listening from the other side of a wide canyon that looks/hears toward an object that everyone else has been observing from the same “somewhere else” place, down there, over there, far away.

Recognizability of the original material may or may not be one of the features of the remix. Remixing the mood, the affect, the tone of the music may happen. I think of a remix as being so touched by the source (the music) that it allows me to wonder of other possibilities, of other potentials unconsidered until the moment of the remix.

To some extent a remix follows the same motivations encountered in jazz contrafacts. Indeed, it takes some pretty intense listening skills to recognize that Charlie Parker’s “Ko-Ko” is a contrafact of Ray Noble’s “Cherokee.” (When I was in high school, on the other hand, I remember hearing a vocal version of Dizzy Gillespie’s “Groovin’ High” sung against the John Schonberger’s music for the song “Whispering.” That was my first encounter with a contrafact.) Rohde presented remixes of two sources, Hildegard’s canticle “Ave Maria, o auctrix vitae” (Hail Mary, O source of life) and Joni Mitchell’s “Blue.” Since I have never given Mitchell very much thought, I was particularly drawn to the reworking of chant into a trio for alto flute, viola, and cello, with particular attention to the blending of the lower flute register with the low strings.

The intense solemnity of this remix offered a striking contrast to its predecessor, Albert Roussel’s Opus 40 trio for flute, viola, and cello. Born in France, Roussel cultivated a lively rhetoric, almost as if he were determined to educate the entire world about the spirit of joie de vivre. Apparently, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge believed that Americans could do with more of that spirit; and she commissioned Roussel to compose his trio in 1929. Those that know their history know that 1929 turned out to be not a particularly good year for joie de vivre in the United States (or pretty much anywhere else); but the high spirits of Opus 40 have remained with us. Pelinka, Rohde, and Fong gave the score a delightful account, which could not have come at a better time when spirits need lifting.

Dominique’s “Soft-Spoken” was also a reflection on current times. Set for alto flute, viola, and cello, the music was inspired by the composer’s need for contrast to the intense amplitude of recent protest activities. To some extent the music settles on a still point, in which not only volume level but also movement itself is kept to a minimum. The piece lasted about six minutes, which was pretty much the right amount of time for it to make its point. Furthermore, it shared with Rohde’s “Ave” remix the sharp and stimulating contrast with Roussel’s trio.

The other recent composition was Laurie San Martin’s “Zeppelin.” First performed in December of 2002, the piece is a duo for flute and cello in which the high register of the cello was intended to evoke the smooth passage and quietude of a zeppelin in flight. The “world outside the zeppelin,” so to speak, was then evoked by Pelinka’s punctuations on both flute and alto flute.

The program concluded with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 25 serenade in D major for flute, violin, and viola. Published in 1801, the music tends to reflect the idea of working with more than four movements, as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had done in his serenades. Mozart’s compositions were probably intended as “background” for festive gatherings. Beethoven, on the other hand, was more interested in the players and the listeners; and Opus 25 is one of the best examples of the breadth of the composer’s capacity for wit. Unfortunately, little of that wit emerged in last night’s performance, almost as if the players had only begun to master the technical, leaving little time to move on to the rhetorical.