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.
No comments:
Post a Comment