Dazzling Percussion Featured at Davies

Last night in Davies Symphony Hall, guest conductor Joseph Young led the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) in the program that was devoted almost entirely to a performance of Rodion Shchedrin’s “Carmen Ballet.” Shchedrin composed this music for his wife, prima ballerina assoluta Maya Plisetskaya, who premiered the title role at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow on April 20, 1967. As I observed this past Wednesday, Shchedrin called his score “a creative meeting of the minds,” the minds being his own and that of Georges Bizet, composer of the Carmen opera.

I should therefore begin by taking issue with the SFS program sheet, which identified the music as having been composed by “GEORGES BIZET (arr. Rodion Shchedrin).” This is a gross misconception. Shchedrin deserves the same “top billing” that Franz Liszt claimed for any of his many solo piano paraphrases of opera music. As is the case with those paraphrases, the real creativity behind the score can be found in the arrangement, rather than the source content, whose primary asset was being a source of themes familiar to just about everyone in the audience.

As the audience assembled in Davies, they were quickly aware that, while the tunes would be familiar, the treatment would definitely be “something completely different.” The rear of the stage was filled with a cornucopia of percussion instruments, both pitched and unpitched. There were four percussionists led by Principal Jacob Nissly; and all of them should have had their names listed on the program sheet, just as is the case for any concerto soloists. In the center of all this, Edward Stephan presided over a set of four timpani.

These was not the only shortcomings on that program sheet. The ballet score is in thirteen sections, but anyone encountering this music for the first time would not know this from the program. All thirteen of the sections were listed on five lines, and no one took the trouble to separate them with punctuation marks! Those planning to attend tonight’s performance would benefit from having a copy of the Wikipedia page for this music, which provides not only a clearer enumeration of the sections but also gives a through account of all the percussion instruments and how they are distributed among the four players.

The good news is that the performance itself could not have been more delightful. Shchedrin’s treatment of Bizet covers the full gamut from the ridiculous to the sublime, and Young clearly knew how to give each of those dispositions its proper treatment. He somewhat spoiled the fun by letting the audience know in advance about one of Shchedrin’s most prankish gestures; but it was soon followed by another one, which registered the expected shock value for just about everyone in the audience.

Having seen the ballet for this music, I should also note how satisfying the concert experience was. The fact is that trying to cram all of that percussion into an orchestra pit is more than a little unfair to both the performers and the listeners. Watching the SFS percussionists was as absorbing as watching the ballet being performed; and, with all of those instruments on the stage, one had a far better sense of how Shchedrin had conceived the interplay between the percussion and the string section (the only other instruments on the stage).

“Carmen Suite” was preceded by two relatively short compositions. Carlos Simon’s “An Elegy: A Cry from the Grave” was only about five minutes in duration. It was conceived as a memorial piece for Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown; and it served as a compelling example of intense emotion expressed through quietude. It was preceded by Jessie Montgomery’s “Banner,” composed in 2014 as a bicentennial “response” to “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

We have come a long way in our attitude towards our National Anthem. Igor Stravinsky composed an orchestration that was banned by an Act of Congress! Montgomery’s reflection on the Anthem was imaginative and featured compelling solo string performances by violinists Alexander Barantschik and Helen Kim, violist Yun Jie Liu, cellist Peter Wyrick, and Charles Chandler on bass. Nevertheless, there was a sense that Montgomery said all that she had to say before her composition covered its duration of less than ten minutes.