David Oistrakh on Warner: the Second DVD

While I described the first of the three DVDs in the Warner Remastered Edition box set collection of recordings of performances by Russian violinist David Oistrakh as “an engaging profile of the breadth of Oistrakh’s command of repertoire,” I have to confess that the second DVD did not live up to expectations based on the first. This one had a title, Moscow Recitals; and, as might be expected, the filmed accounts of those recitals were selected by Bruno Monsaingeon. Most of the content involved recordings of performances before Moscow audiences, but the last four tracks seems to have been captured in studio settings.

The good news is that there was no shortage of sonata music, including complete sonatas by Franz Schubert, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Claude Debussy, along with two movements from Maurice Ravel’s sonata. These all play a significant role in the violin repertoire, but there were too many occasions in which Oistrakh’s delivery came across as little more than dutiful. There were also “peculiarities” to be found both in the video and on the DVD sleeve.

Fritz Kreisler on the cover of the February 2, 1925 issues of Time magazine (public domain, from Wikimedia Commons)

The most egregious of these was the misprint of Schubert’s death as 1826 (instead of 1828), suggesting that he had died before Beethoven! A bit more confusing, however, was the excerpt from a piece by Fritz Kreisler. The film identified it as “Variations on a theme by Tartini,” while the sleeve named it “Variations on a theme by Corelli.” According to the Wikipedia list of Kreisler’s compositions, the correct title is “Variations on a theme by Corelli;” but there is a “postfix” to the title identifying the music as “in the style of Tartini,” to which this music had previously been attributed. More critical is that the sleeve failed to identify that, when Oistrakh played Pablo de Sarasate’s “Navarra” with his son Igor, they were both accompanied by pianist Vladimir Yampolsky.

If Monsaingeon did not take the trouble to proofread all of the content associated with all of the albums in this collection, he should have given the task to a reliable substitute. Serious listeners tend to be picky about the facts during their listening experiences. (At least this one is!)

Chanticleer to Explore Indian Music

Banner for the Web page with the details of Chanticleer’s remaining programs for its 47th season

The next San Francisco performance by the Chanticleer vocalists will take place one week from this coming Saturday. The title of the program is Choodandi, inspired by “Chudandi Saaru,” a Telugu song composed by Vedala Hemachandra, who also wrote the lyrics. The selections will explore how different aspects of classical Indian music have changed and evolved. The event will be curated by Chanticleer tenor Vineel Garisa Mahal.

The San Francisco performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 22, and will probably run for about two hours.  The venue will be the Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. This is located on the ground floor of the Conservatory building at 50 Oak Street, a short walk from the Market Street stations for both BART and Muni. Ticket prices will be $71 for Premiere seating, $61 for Preferred seating, and $30 for general admission. All tickets are being sold online by City Box Office. Tickets can also be purchased by calling City Box Office at 415-392-4400.

Bignamini’s Disappointing Recording Debut

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

This coming Friday PENTATONE will release the debut recording of conductor Jader Bignamini, Music Director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO). Hopefully, there will be at least a few readers that recall my online interest in DSO, which dates back to a video of David Del Tredici’s “Final Alice” conducted by Leonard Slatkin, which I encountered back in September of 2012. Since then, my wife and I have done our best to keep up with the Live from Orchestra Hall telecasts, which, because of the difference in time zones, we usually watch over dinner.

In that context, I was delighted to have the opportunity to preview the new PENTATONE album. It consists of a single work, lasting a little more than an hour, composed by Wynton Marsalis. The title is “Blues Symphony;” but, if one is to be fair to terminology, it is more suite than symphony. The advance material I received provided the following description:

The work is triumphant ode to the power of the blues and the scope of America’s musical heritage. With a blend of influences from ragtime to habanera, the work takes listeners on a sonic journey through America’s revolutionary era, the early beginnings of jazz in New Orleans, and a big city soundscape that serves as a nod to the Great Migration.

Sadly, there is more content in those two sentences than there is in the seven movements of “Blues Symphony.” Marsalis does little more than crank out one cliché after another. Mind you, Bignamini does his best to lead the DSO players through each trope with as much nuance as he can muster; but, to invoke an old saying, there is only so much you can make from a sow’s ear!

Given the thoroughly impressive account of Igor Stravinsky’s music for “The Rite of Spring,” which was telecast almost exactly two months ago, DSO deserved a better debut recording than a one-hour slog through a Marsalis score.

New Green Mitchell Trio Album from Queen Bee

Green Mitchell Trio members Jason Levis, Cory Wright, and Lisa Mezzacappa (photograph by Myles Boisen, courtesy of Mezzacappa)

Almost a month ago, this site wrote about the Queen Bee Records release of Luminous Axis, an album of drums-and-bass performances by the duo B. ensemble, whose members are Lisa Mezzacappa on acoustic bass and drummer Jason Levis. This was followed this past Friday by a new Queen Bee album. The title of this one is Nature Channel, and it is a performance by Green Mitchell Trio. In spite of its name, this trio is led by Cory Wright, alternating between tenor saxophonist and bass clarinet, with rhythm provided again by Mezzacappa and Levis.

The album consists of five tracks with the title track in the middle. Most of the tracks are roughly five minutes in duration. The one exception is the fourth track, “Valk,” which runs short of roughly fourteen minutes. Given my past experiences with the woodwind family, I was mostly drawn to Wright’s bass clarinet work, which I have always felt evoked a sound world unto itself. This is the second in a series of three releases by Queen Bee Records, the first of which, Luminous Axis, featured Mezzacappa and Levis performing as a duo (which they call duo B.). Wright’s addition to that duo opens up a door of new sonorities, providing the attentive listener with an engaging journey through a diversity of sound worlds.

The Bleeding Edge: 3/10/2025

Almost all of this week’s events are new. The only exceptions will be the next round of performances of the fourth installment in the series entitled New Voices. These will continue at Audium on Thursday, March 13, Friday, March 14, and Saturday, March 15, beginning at 8 p.m. For those that do not yet know, the venue is located at 1616 Bush Street. Doors will open at 7:30 p.m., and admission will be between $20 and $30. There will also be four new events this week as follows:

Thursday, March 13, Dharma Collective, 7 p.m.: This will be a visit from Seattle by the Tiptons Saxophone Quartet & Drums. All but two of the quartet players perform on multiple instruments and add vocals. They are leader Amy Denio (alto saxophone and clarinet) and co-leader Jessica Lurie (soprano, alto, and tenor saxophone). The other two also provide vocals but play only a single instrument: tenor saxophonist Sue Orfield and Tina Richerson on baritone saxophone. Rhythm is provided by Rick Wabblies on drums and other percussion. The venue is located in the Mission at 2929 24th Street. The suggested donation for admission will be $20.

Friday, March 14, Mr. Tipple’s Jazz Club, 6 p.m. and 7:20 p.m.: The Lisa Mezzacappa Quartet will perform two sets. Mezzacappa will lead from her bass. She will be joined by Aaron Bennett on tenor saxophone, vibraphonist Mark Clifford, and Eric Garland on drums. The venue is located in the Civic Center at 39 Fell Street. Both food and drink are served.

Friday, March 14, Medicine for Nightmares, 7 p.m.: As usual reed player David Boyce will host his semi-regular Friday evening series entitled Other Dimensions in Sound. This week the performance will be a three-set evening. Boyce himself will play his reed instruments along with the Grex duo of guitarist Karl Evangelista and keyboardist Rei Scampavia (both also contributing vocals and drum work). Saxophonist Francis Wong will perform a duo set with William Roper on tuba. The final set will be led by woodwind player Vinny Golia, performing with guitarist Steuart Liebig and Nathan Hubbard, whose percussion work often includes instruments of his own invention. The venue is located in the Mission at 3036 24th Street, between Treat Avenue and Harrison Street. As always, there is no charge for admission, presumably to encourage visitors to consider buying a book.

Billy Gomberg working with his electronic gear (from his Discogs Web page)

Saturday, March 15, The Lab, 8:30 p.m.: This will be a visit from Tokyo by sound artist Chihei Hatakeyama, whose “primary instrument” is his laptop. He uses it to create memory-evoking soundscapes based on recordings of acoustic instruments such as guitars, vibraphone, and piano. The program will begin with a solo set by Billy Gomberg, whose primary instrument is bass guitar but who also performs with French horn, synthesizers, and other electronic sources.

Paponiu Brings Diversity to SFS Youth Orchestra

Yesterday afternoon was my first opportunity of the season to catch up with the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) Youth Orchestra led by Wattis Foundation Music Director Radu Paponiu. The program was an engagingly diverse one with major selections by both Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Richard Strauss, each of which was paired with a more recent work by Gabriela Lena Frank and Arturo Márquez, respectively. Paponiu led with a solid command of the full breadth of diversity offered by this repertoire, and all the members of his ensemble came across as well-tuned to his every gesture.

“Marriage à-la-mode: The Countess's Morning Levee,” a painting by William Hogarth that may have inspired the first act of Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier (from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Mozart led the way with his K. 385 (“Haffner”) symphony in D major. This was given a vigorous delivery under Paponiu’s baton, introducing the ensemble with a dazzling account of the clarity in their “musical diction.” This was complemented in the second half of the program by a suite of instrumental excerpts from Richard Strauss’ opera Der Rosenkavalier. As an opera-goer, I have long appreciated the role that this music played in the unfolding of the narrative; but that narrative was left by the wayside in the suite that Strauss extracted. Nevertheless, the performance evoked my own personal memories of the Marschallin, Octavian, and Baron Ochs, even without much sense of the story that unfolded.

The Frank and Márquez selections were both “first encounters,” although I had listened to other Frank works over the last few decades. Each of these new encounters offered its own technique on Latin rhetoric, and both were equally engaging. However, I must confess that I was particularly impressed by Márquez leaving it to the violas to take the lead on the primary theme! This was his second “Danzón” composition, completed in 1994; and the performance convinced me that his repertoire deserves more attention.

Lisiecki to Return to San Francisco Performances

Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki (from his SFP event page)

San Francisco Performances presented the debut of Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki in December of 2013, when he was the featured artist in that season’s Young Master’s Series. He began that program with the first four of the eight preludes that Olivier Messiaen composed in 1928. Later this month, he will return to Herbst Theatre with a program consisting entirely of preludes.

Once again, Messiaen will be included in the program. However, Lisiecki will also perform the complete cycle of preludes composed by Frédéric Chopin for his Opus 28. The other contributors to the program will be Johann Sebastian Bach (of course), Sergei Rachmaninoff, Henryk Górecki, and Karol Szymanowski. This promises to be an engaging journey in which familiarity with rub shoulders with discovery!

This program will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 20. Ticket prices are $85 (premium Orchestra and front and center Dress Circle), $75 (remainder of Orchestra, all Side Boxes, and center rear Dress Circle), and $65 (remaining Dress Circle and Balcony). As always, they may be purchased through an SFP secure Web page. The venue will be Herbst Theatre, whose entrance is the main entrance to the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, located on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. The venue is excellent for public transportation, since that corner has Muni bus stops for both north-south and east-west travel.

Calidore Quartet’s Third Appearance with SFP

Calidore String Quartet members Ryan Meehan, Estelle Choi, Jeffrey Myers, and Jeremy Berry (from their SFP event page)

Last night the Calidore Quartet returned to Herbst Theatre for their third recital presented by San Francisco Performances (SFP). In reviewing my archives, I was happy to discover that I had encountered both of their previous visits, beginning with their debut in January of 2019. That was a Great Artists and Ensembles Series program, which they shared with pianist Inon Barnatan, presenting a program devoted entirely to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. (Bach never wrote a string quartet; but their “orchestral support” to Barnatan’s keyboard work could not have been more engaging.)

That program began with Calidore on its own playing six of the pieces collected in the BWV 1080 The Art of Fugue, five four-voice fugues and one two-voice canon. That interest in fugues returned with their second appearance the following October, which included fugal writing by both Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven. The latter was the “grand finale” of the program Beethoven’s Opus 133 “Große Fuge.”

I am happy to report that the musicians that returned to Herbst last night were the same ones I had previously encountered in 2019. The quartet still consists of violinists Jeffrey Myers and Ryan Meehan, violist Jeremy Berry, and cellist Estelle Choi; and their ensemble work remains consistently engaging. This time, however, Beethoven was selected to begin the program with his Opus 74 (“Harp”) quartet, composed in 1809 during what has is sometimes known as the composer’s “middle period.” As that title suggests, the music involves an engaging interplay between arco and pizzicato bowing; and Calidore could not have done a better job of delivering that interplay.

This “Beethoven favorite” was complemented at the other end of the program with music that I was encountering for the first time (which probably could be said of just about everyone else in the audience). Erich Wolfgang Korngold is best known for the music he composed for many of the Hollywood films directed by Max Reinhardt in the thirties. He won an Oscar for his score for The Adventures of Robin Hood in 1938; and, given what was happening in Europe at that time, he was later known to say that Robin Hood saved him from the Nazis.

Last night Calidore performed his Opus 34 (third) quartet in D major, which he composed in 1945, the same year in which he wrote a violin concerto for Jascha Heifetz. During the first movement of the quartet, I could hear my composition teacher in the back of my head muttering “slimy chromaticism;” but the quartet became more engaging as it progressed. What struck me was the diversity of dispositions that permeated the entire composition, perhaps reflecting on the composer’s command of all those dispositions in his film work. Nevertheless, following that performance, the audience was reassured with a return to Beethoven: The encore selection was the final movement of the fourth of Beethoven’s Opus 18 quartets, composed in the key of C minor.

The contrast between Beethoven and Korngold was reflected in the choice of shorter works on either side of the intermission. The “Harp” quartet was followed, appropriately enough, by Jesse Montgomery’s “Strum.” I am tempted to say, “One good pluck deserves another;” but Montgomery’s arco writing tended to prevail over her pizzicato passages. Nevertheless, one could approach the first half of the program as a “then and now” contrast of plucked technique.

The intermission was followed by what might be called a “reflection” on the Beethoven offering. This was Franz Schubert’s D. 703 in C minor, given the simple title “Quartettsatz.” One could call this a dark reflection on the “lighter side” of Beethoven’s quartet. The music is relatively brief but could not have been more intense, and Calidore’s command of that intensity verged on the jaw-dropping.

Thus, in the return of Calidore’s third visit to SFP, I find myself already thinking about when they will return for their fourth engagement!

LCCE to Partner with SFCM this Coming Friday

Banner design for Arcade Live! from the SFCM event page

This coming Friday will see an imaginative (and probably adventurous) partnership between the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble (LCCE) and the Technology and Applied Composition program at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM). The event will involve the streaming of a special broadcast performance of Arcade Live! The program will consist of student arrangements of classical masterpieces, which will be performed alongside iconic video game soundtracks.

There will be a total of twelve selections, most of which will present those student arrangements. The one “original” work on the program will be “Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune,” a two-movement work by composer Greg Edmonson. This will be performed by Stacey Palinka on flute, clarinetist Jerome Simas, Chase Spruill on violin, cellist Leighton Fong, and Alison Lee on piano. Compositions will be inspired by not only video games such as The Legend of Zelda but also comic books, such as Star Wars: The Old Republic. There will also be arrangements of “classics,” such as Alecya Mitchell’s quintet arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 565 toccata-fugue coupling in D minor, performed by that same quintet cited above.

The event itself will be a live viewing party, which will take place in the Cha Chi Ming Recital Hall, beginning at 5 p.m. on Friday, March 14. This is located on the first floor of the Bowes Center building at 200 Van Ness Avenue (across the street from Davies Symphony Hall). The SFCM event page provides a hyperlink for reserving a seat, along with a second hyperlink for livestream viewing. In all likelihood, this event will be “something completely different” for both LCCE and SFCM!

Jeneba Kanneh-Mason: Too Much for One CD?

It has been a while since I wrote about one of the members of the Kanneh-Mason family, a clan that seems to have yielded an abundance of musical talent. My most recent encounter was this past September, when I wrote about Isata’s Mendelssohn album, which, like the Takács Quartet album I discussed yesterday, accounted for music by both Felix and Fanny. Where the future is concerned, cellist Sheku will be visiting Davies Symphony Hall at the beginning of June for the final offering in this season’s San Francisco Symphony Great Performers Series.

Cover of the album being discussed (from the Amazon.com Web page)

This coming Friday Sony Classical will release what I think will be the debut album of pianist Jeneba, given the title Fantasie. As is almost always the case, Amazon.com has already created the Web page for this album, which is currently processing pre-orders. This is, to say the least, a major undertaking, which reminds me of the old nothing-succeeds-like-excess jibe.

If this album were a book, I would describe it as being structured in four chapters:

1. Frédéric Chopin
2. Americana
3. Claude Debussy
4. Alexander Scriabin

Each of those individual composers is represented by two compositions. The entire album is framed by two multi-movement sonatas, beginning with Chopin’s Opus 35 (“Funeral March”) sonata in B-flat major and concluding with Scriabin’s Opus 19 in G-sharp minor, a two-movement work given the subtitle “Sonata-Fantaisie.” Both of those composers are also represented by two shorter works. The Chopin sonata is followed by the first two nocturnes in his Opus 27 set, and the Scriabin sonata is preceded by the first and eleventh preludes in his Opus 11 collection of preludes in all major and minor keys. The Debussy selections are also preludes, “La fille aux cheveux de lin” (the girl with the flaxen hair) from the first book and  “Bruyères” (Heather, named after a town Eastern France) from the second.

Bearing in mind that the Kanneh-Mason family is British, I have to confess that I was most interested in how Jeneba approached the three American composers in her program. She began with the first of Florence Price’s “Fantasie nègre” pieces, composed in 1929, revised in 1931, and based on the spiritual “Sinner, please don’t let this harvest pass.” The original version of this music was first performed by Margaret Bonds, who happens to be the second of those three Americans. “Troubled Water” is basically a fantasia on the African-American spiritual: “Wade in the Water.” The final composer is William Grant Still, represented by “Summerland,” which is the second piece in his Three Visions suite composed in 1935. (This is probably the best known of the three parts, since it was subsequently arranged for violin and orchestra.)

Taken as a whole, Jeneba has presented a decidedly generous offering. (Those that took the trouble to “do the math” will have discovered that this album offers 67.5 minutes of music!) That would make for a relatively impressive recital program, particularly if intermissions were scheduled on either side of the “Americana” segment. (Were I to produce that recital, those would be the intermission choices I would make; but, since I am just a listener, I am just as glad to have no say in the matter!)

Nevertheless, I think it would be fair to caution those acquiring this new release that it is not particularly conducive to beginning-to-end listening. (My guess is that those that try will begin to feel the onset of fatigue during the elaborate embellishments in the American selections.) On the other hand, each of the individual tracks is given an account that is thoroughly absorbing in its clarity. As a result, those with the appropriate gear are likely to have a richer (and, perhaps, better-informed) listening experience through MP3 technology, rather than a CD player!

PBO’s Third Candidate Music Director

Conductor Peter Whelan on the banner for the PBO Web page for Alceste

Last night’s performance by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale continued the search for its next Music Director by a concert-based-audition of its third candidate, Peter Whelan. The candidate is currently the Artistic Director of the Irish Baroque Orchestra and Curator for Early Music for the Norwegian Wind Ensemble. The program he prepared consisted entirely of music by George Frideric Handel. This consisted primarily of the HWV 45 incidental music composed for Tobias Smollett’s play Alceste, which was preceded by an “overture” of sorts in the form of HWV 319, the first of the Opus 6 concerti grossi, composed in the key of G major. The vocal soloists for HWV 45 included two members of the Philharmonia Chorale, mezzo Leandra Ramm and baritone Jeffrey Fields joined by visiting artists Lauren Snouffer (soprano) and tenor Aaron Sheehan. As usual, the Chorale was led by Valérie Sainte-Agathe.

I am not sure why Whelan decided that the orchestra should perform the concerto grosso while standing. If he thought it would provide a more focused delivery, then he definitely did not succeed. For the most part, phrasing came across as disconcertingly scrappy, almost as if the players wanted their leader to know that they were more focused when seated. However, scrappiness was only one of the problems. The more serious difficulty was a disappointingly poor account of intonation across the entire ensemble.

Fortunately, the orchestra was seated for HWV 45. Nevertheless, problems of scrappiness remained, now invading the Chorale as well as the Orchestra. Even one of the vocal soloists, Fields, seemed to be having problems aligning his sonorities with those of the instrumental ensemble. It remains to be seen whether those problems involved poorly-prepared rehearsals or lack of communication once the conductor arrived. Whatever the case may have been, this was one of my most disappointing PBO encounters with both vocalists and instrumentalists.

The Mendelssohns are Going Vinyl

I have noticed over the recent months that there has been somewhat of a growing trend towards returning to vinyl long-playing (LP) discs for more satisfying acoustics. At my advanced age, my hearing is not as sensitive as it used to be; and, as a result, I am more than content with “digital listening.” If I wish to listen to every acoustic nuance, I am more than happy to seek it at concerts and recitals (due, in no small part, to such offerings being walking distance from where I live)!

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

Nevertheless, I feel it worth informing those preferring analog that the Takács Quartet album of string quartets by both Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn will be available on a Hyperion LP one week from today. For those content with digital, Amazon.com has created a Web page for this album (which will probably include a hyperlink for the LP once it is available). It begins with Fanny’s quartet in E-flat major, followed by two of Felix’s seven quartets in reverse chronological order. The first of these is his final effort in the genre, Op. Posth. 80 (numbered the sixth) in F minor. This is followed at the other extreme by the Opus 13 (second) quartet in A minor.

I must confess that my reaction to this release is one of “compare and contrast.” Back when I was writing for Examiner.com in 2013, I reviewed a release by Virgin Classics of Quatuor ébène performing exactly the same selections. Mind you, over a decade has passed since then; so “side-by-side” listening may not be very fair, particularly since that album provided a “first contact” experience of Fanny’s quartet. Nevertheless, there was definitely a degree of freshness in encountering that quartet again. However, while there was no shortage of energy in the Takács performances of her brother’s music, I am afraid that both of the selections came across as “business as usual.”

While I appreciate the “brother-and-sister” approach to the Mendelssohn repertoire, I must confess that I still feel that a little bit of Felix is usually enough!

Schwabacher: Two Vocalists and Two Pianists

Tenor Michael John Butler and Baritone Olivier Zerouali (courtesy of the Merola Opera Program and the San Francisco Opera Center)

The annual Schwabacher Recital Series, presented jointly by the San Francisco Opera (SFO) Center and the Merola Opera Program, will continue in a little less than two week’s time. This month’s program will present tenor Michael John Butler and baritone Olivier Zerouali; and it will be the second of the three programs presented this season. Accompaniment will be provided by two pianists: Julian Garvue and Ji Youn Lee.

The program will present four song cycles. The oldest (and probably most familiar) of these will be Robert Schumann’s Opus 48 Dichterliebe (a poet’s love), setting sixteen of the poems that Heinrich Heine collected in his Lyrisches Intermezzo. Francis Poulenc will be represented by two cycles. The program will begin with Le Travail du Peintre (the work of the painter), providing “musical portraits” of the artists Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Paul Klee, Joan Miró, and Jacques Villon. The other cycle collects six songs under the title Calligrammes. The remaining cycle on the program will be I Was There: Five Poems of Walt Whitman by Lee Hoiby. The program will conclude with the last three of the four songs that Richard Strauss collected for his Opus 27.

This performance will take place in the Barbro Osher Recital Hall on Wednesday, March 19, beginning at 7:30 p.m. This venue is on the eleventh floor of the Bowes Center, which is located at 200 Van Ness Avenue. General admission will be $30. Tickets may be purchased online through an event page on the San Francisco Opera Web site. Note that wheelchair accessible seating is not an option. The telephone number for the Box Office is 864-3330. In addition, subject to availability, student rush tickets will go on sale at 7 p.m. at the reduced rate of $15. There is a limit of two tickets per person, and valid identification must be shown.

Horszowski Trio to Return to Noe Music

Horszowski Trio members Jesse Mills, Rieko Aizawa, and Ole Akahoshi (from the ThunderTix Web page for purchasing tickets)

The founding members of the Horszowski Trio were the husband-and-wife duo Jesse Mills on violin and Rieko Aizawa on piano joined by cellist Raman Ramakrishnan. They last visited Noe Music in 2019, giving a sold-out performance. Since that time cellist Ole Akahoshi replaced Ramakrishnan, and the three of them will return to the Noe Valley Ministry and the end of next week. They have prepared a program that promises to be an engaging interplay of old and new.

The program will begin with the oldest selection, the Hoboken XV/12 piano trio in E minor by Joseph Haydn. The most recent offering will begin the second half of the program. This will be William Bolcom’s “Introduction and Rondo - ‘Haydn Go Seek,’” the piano trio he completed in 2008. The second selections for both halves will be particularly engaging. The Haydn trio will be followed by Arnold Schoenberg’s Opus 19, a set of six “Little Pieces” for solo piano. Aizawa has arranged these pieces for piano trio. Finally, the program will conclude on the most familiar ground Antonín Dvořák's Opus 81 piano quintet. They will be joined by Owen Dalby playing second violin and violist Meena Bhasin.

As usual, the performance will take place at 4 p.m. on a Sunday, March 16. The venue will be the Noe Valley Ministry, located at 1021 Sanchez Street, between 23rd Street and Elizabeth Street. Open seating tickets may be purchased with prices of $45 for general admission and $15 for students. As in the past, there will be a limited number of reserved seats in the first few rows, which will be sold for $60. (Each price also has a modest handling fee.) All available tickets may be purchased through a single Web page.

“Birdophobia” for Flute and Guitar

The latest OMNI on-Location video was released by the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts early this afternoon. The music was the first movement of Takashi Yoshimatsu’s Opus 15, his Digital Bird Suite. The title of that movement is “Birdophobia.”

Dejan Gavrić and Goran Krivokapić  playing “Birdophobia” (from the YouTube video of their performance)

The work was composed for the duo of flute and guitar, with the flute “playing the role” of the digital bird. On the new video, that “role” is taken by flutist Dejan Gavrić, performing with Goran Krivokapić on guitar. The entire movement is a bit less than four minutes in duration. In other words, like many of the bird songs we encounter in the natural world, it is over before the tune has really registered with us! In spite of that brevity, the music is definitely engaging enough that many attentive listeners will probably give it (at least) a second try!

David Oistrakh on Warner: the First DVD

Having now accounted for all of the CDs in the Warner Remastered Edition box set collection of recordings of performances by Russian violinist David Oistrakh, I can now turn to the first of the three DVDs that remain in the box. This is an assembly of filmed accounts of Oistrakh performances curated by Bruno Monsaingeon and compiled on a DVD entitled The Oistrakh Collection. As might be guessed, there is a fair amount of variation in the quality of the video contents, matched by the variation in accuracy of when the content was created.

David Oistrakh as soloist in a performance of Johannes Brahms’ violin concerto on a recording conducted by Otto Klemperer (from a Web page on The Listeners’ Club)

The leading figure on this album is, as might be expected, Ludwig van Beethoven, with accounts of both orchestral and chamber music. The Opus 61 concerto is complemented with concertos by Johannes Brahms, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Jean Sibelius, along with an excerpt from Édouard Lalo’s Opus 21, “Symphonie espagnole,” performed with only piano accompaniment by Vladimir Yampolsky. Towards the end of the CD, there is a track of one of Fritz Kreisler’s most familiar compositions, his “Liebesleid;” and the “program” concludes with “Laberinto armonico” (harmonic labyrinth), the capriccio that begins the last of the twelve concertos that Pietro Locatelli collected in L’arte del violino, arranged for solo violin and orchestra by Gennady Rozhdestvensky.

Taken as a whole, the DVD provides an engaging profile of the breadth of Oistrakh’s command of repertoire. Mind you, the Sibelius concerto stands out as the most adventurous selection on the album. However, when we consider how much of Oistrakh’s repertoire is rooted in traditions of earlier centuries, the fact that he took on the Opus 47 at all merits a star in his heavenly crown! For my part, however, the high point of the collection was the opportunity to both view and listen to Sviatoslav Richter accompanying Oistrakh in the last two movements of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 12 (third) sonata in E-flat major.

Mind you, I am not sure that video does very much to enhance the listening experience; but I can still confess to enjoying the interplay between Oistrakh and Richter!

Sunset Music and Arts: March, 2025

Things have been quiet at Sunset Music and Arts since the beginning of this year. Indeed, the Jazz in the Sunset project, which was scheduled to begin almost exactly a month ago, was cancelled even before the month of February began. As a result, the 2025 season, which will mark Sunset’s ten-year anniversary, will only get under way one week from this coming Saturday; and, as of this writing, that concert will be the only performance taking place this month.

The Sing Out Strong! vocalists (from the Sunset Music and Arts Web page for this performance)

The event will be the sixth annual performance by Sing Out Strong! This ensemble, directed by Ellaine Jerome and accompanied at the piano by Betty Fujimoto, will present a program of songs from Broadway, the great American songbook, folk music, and more. This is a “community” group (rather than professional), whose members come from all walks of life. They perform not only for the joy of making music but also because it helps maintain good health. The selections for this program will include “This Land is Your Land,” “Deep in the Heart of Texas,”  “Old Cape Cod,” “When its Springtime in the Rockies,” “Rhode Island is Famous for You,” “Georgia,” “San Francisco,” and “One Voice.”

This performance will take place at 4 p.m. on Saturday, March 15. For those not familiar with this concert series, it takes place at the Incarnation Episcopal Church, which is located in the Sunset at 1750 29th Avenue. Admission will be free with a suggested donation of $20 per person.

SFP: Tetzlaff Quartet Cancels US Tour

Tetzlaff Quartet members Tanja Tetzlaff, Hanna Weinmeister, Elisabeth Kufferath, and Christian Tetzlaff (from their SFP Web page)

Yesterday San Francisco Performances (SFP) announced that the Tetzlaff Quartet had cancelled their planned tour of the United States. Some readers may recall that they were scheduled to visit Herbst Theatre this month on March 21 as part of this season’s SFP Chamber Series. The reason given for the cancellation was “concerns over Trump administration policies.” Enough said?

The Bleeding Edge: 3/4/2025

Almost all of this week’s events have already been reported as follows:

• Center for New Music: evening programs on Thursday, March 6, and Friday, March 7, and the monthly G|O|D|W|A|F|F|L|E|N|O|I|S|E|P|A|N|C|A|K|E|S event on Saturday, March 8
• Audium: three more performances of the fourth installment in the New Voices series on Thursday, March 6, Friday, March 7, and Saturday, March 8
• Outsound Presents: the monthly SIMM Series concert at the Musicians Union on Sunday, March 9

That leaves only two remaining events. One of them is a “usual suspect, while the other involves a venue that has not hosted a Bleeding Edge program since September of 2023. Specifics are as follows:

Poster for the Exploratorium event

Thursday, March 6, 6:00 p.m., Exploratorium: After Dark: Play of Light is a program presented jointly by Shapeshifters Cinema and the Do-Over Music Series. As might be expected, this will involve a collaborative approach to the interplay of improvised music and visuals. The latter will be an abstract projection collage of film loops, slides, and Lumia Stream created by Ellie Vanderlip, Kathleen Quillian and Gilbert Guerrero. The performing musicians will be keyboardist Evelyn Davis, Jon Arkin on both drums and electronics, cellist Marissa Deitz, Lisa Mezzacappa on bass, and drummer Jordan Glenn. There will be no charge beyond the fee for entering the Exploratorium, which is located at Pier 15 on the Embarcadero, across from the intersection with Green Street.

Friday, March 7, 7 p.m., Medicine for Nightmares: This week’s Other Dimensions in Sound program will present two sets. MICHAEL P. DAWSON (caps preferred) will open with a solo flute performance enhanced by electronics. This will be followed by a quartet of “usual suspects.” Bruce Ackley will play a variety of woodwind instruments, complemented by Darren Johnston on trumpet. David Michalak is describing his percussion work as “Skatch ’n Steel.” (As in the past, he will be playing steel guitar and the skatch instruments invented by the late Tom Nunn.) The “continuo” for this quartet will be provided by Ben Davis on cello.  As always, the venue is located in the Mission at 3036 24th Street, between Treat Avenue and Harrison Street. There is no charge for admission, presumably to encourage visitors to consider buying a book.

Choices for March 14, 2025

Many readers probably know by now that this coming weekend will be a busy one; and hard choices may have to be made for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. As of this writing, the following weekend will not be as hectic. Nevertheless, there will be two events on Friday evening (March 14), both beginning at 7:30 p.m. These are decidedly contrasting, but both definitely deserve consideration. The venues for those events are as follows:

Herbst Theatre: This will be the fifth visit of the Pavel Haas Quartet to San Francisco Performances. The members of the ensemble are violinists Veronika Jarůšková and Marek Zwiebel, Šimon Truszka on viola, and cellist Peter Jarůšek. Their program will consist of quartets by two major nineteenth-century composers. The program will begin with Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 61 quartet in C major. The intermission will be followed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 30 (third) quartet in E-flat major.

Tickets are on sale for $85 for premium seating in the Orchestra, the Side Boxes, and the front and center of the Dress Circle, $75 for the center rear of the Dress Circle and the remainder of the Orchestra, and $65 for the remainder of the Dress Circle and the Balcony in Herbst Theatre, which is located at 401 Van Ness Avenue. They may be purchased online through an SFP Web page. They may also be placed by calling the SFP box office at 415-677-0325, which is open for receiving calls between 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Further information is available by calling 415-392-2545.

The Bucket List Trio of Andy Meyerson, Mark Applebaum, and Travis Andrews (from the Eventbrite Web page for their coming performance)

Roar Shack: Bucket List is a trio formed by The Living Earth Show duo of guitarist Travis Andrews and drummer Andy Meyerson performing with pianist (and Professor of Music Theory and Composition at Stanford University) Mark Applebaum, who will serve as leader. This will be their world premiere performance. Their repertoire combines the traditions of new complexity, experimental electronic music, ensemble game pieces, minimalism, funk, and jazz, with theatric and video elements.

Admission to this event will be by donation. The Eventbrite Web page allows for “Pay What You Can” purchase with a recommended rate between $1 and $100. The venue is located in SoMa at 34 Seventh Street. The entry is through a secret side door on Odd Fellows Way, which is called Stevenson Street on the other side of Seventh. The performance will last for one hour, followed by a one-hour “Postshow hang.”

Solo Replaces Duo to Compensate for Illness

Pianist Vikingur Ólafsson (photograph by Markus Jans, courtesy of San Francisco Symphony)

Last night Davies Symphony Hall had been scheduled to present a “dynamic duo” recital by pianists Yuja Wang and Vikingur Ólafsson as part of the San Francisco Symphony Great Performers Series. Sadly, Wang was indisposed, leaving Ólafsson to prepare and deliver a solo performance at the last minute. His program consisted entirely of a single composition by Johann Sebastian Bach, the BWV 988 set of “Goldberg” variations. Some readers may recall that Deutsche Grammophon released an album of Ólafsson playing this major keyboard work in October of 2023, and his technique last night was as solid as it had been on his recording.

Sadly, solid technique tended to prevail over expressive interpretation. Those acquainted with Ólafsson’s recording know that he never shies away from rapid tempi. Last night came across as if he was primarily interested dialing the overall pace of the performance up to eleven. As a result, many of those cherished moments of intricacy in Bach’s counterpoint came across as little more than a blur. This may have been an impressive display of technique, but it certainly did not do the composer any favors!

Nevertheless, when it turned out that a duo recital had to transform into a solo, Ólafsson was prepared to take charge of the entire evening. Presenting BWV 988 solved the problem of coming up with a more diverse program at the last minute. Ironically, this was a “second time around” encounter for those of us that had listened to this music this past Tuesday night in Herbst Theatre; but I always enjoy opportunities to compare different interpretations of a single major keyboard composition. When the comparison involves two different generations of performers, it is all the more interesting!

Midori to Return to SFP with West Coast Premiere

Violinist Midori (from the SFP event page, photograph by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders)

In a little over a week’s time, violinist Midori will return to San Francisco to present her latest recital program for San Francisco Performances (SFP). Her accompanist for this concert will be pianist Özgür Aydin. The program will conclude with the West Coast Premiere performance of “Resonances in Sprit,” which was composed for her by the young Che Buford, who is also a violinist.

All of the preceding works on the program will be by familiar composers from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The program will begin with Johannes Brahms’ Opus 78, the first of his three violin sonatas (not counting the collaborative “F-A-E Sonata”) in the key of G major. This will be followed by Francis Poulenc’s only violin sonata (FP 119), which he composed in memory of the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca. The remaining two works on the program will both be by Maurice Ravel. “Tzigane” was originally composed for violin and piano (but with the option of a luthéal attachment to evoke the sonorities of a cimbalom). “Kaddish,” on the other hand, was originally the first of the Two Hebrew Songs, setting an Aramaic text for the vocalist; but it was subsequently arranged for violin and piano by Lucien Garban.

As is usually the case for SFP events, this program will be performed in Herbst Theatre, beginning at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 11. The entrance to Herbst Theatre is the main entrance to the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, located on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. The venue is excellent for public transportation, since that corner has Muni bus stops for both north-south and east-west travel. Ticket prices are $85 (premium Orchestra and front and center Dress Circle), $75 (remainder of Orchestra, all Side Boxes, and center rear Dress Circle), and $65 (remaining Dress Circle and Balcony). They may be purchased through an SFP secure Web page.

Verve Releases Another “Unearthed” Ella Album

Ella Fitzgerald with her band (photograph by ©Tom Copi, courtesy of Verve Records)

Those that have followed this site for some time may recall my delight in writing about the album Ella: The Lost Berlin Tapes, a “live” recording of a performance given by vocalist Ella Fitzgerald at the Berlin Sportpalast on March 25, 1962, performing only with the trio of Paul Smith on piano, Wilfred Middlebrooks on bass, and Stan Levey on drums. This album was released by Verve in the summer of 2019; and it is still available through an Amazon.com Web page in both vinyl and CD formats. For those that share my enthusiasm for the Fitzgerald discography, I am happy to report the recent release of a new Verve album, this one entitled The Moment of Truth: Ella at the Coliseum.

Since I am a resident of San Francisco, the venue for this recording is much closer than Berlin; and it captures a much earlier period in Fitzgerald’s career. It was recorded on June 30, 1967 (around the time that I earned my Bachelor’s degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) at the Oakland Coliseum. She is accompanied, for the most part, by members of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, including such well-known performers as trumpeters Mercer Ellington and Cootie Williams, Chuck Connors on trombone, and reed players Paul Gonsalves and Johnny Hodges. However, there are also trio performances by pianist Jimmy Jones, Bob Cranshaw on bass, and drummer Sam Woodyard.

Two of the tracks are first-time recordings for Fitzgerald: “Alfie” and “Music To Watch Girls By.” Both of these are familiar to my generation and would have shown up as “regulars” (by other performers) in broadcasts from the campus radio station (where I spent my recreational time). On the other hand, the title track (which is also the first track) was a “first contact” experience for me, as were a few of the other tracks.

In other words, while Fitzgerald died in 1996, I find that I am still discovering new aspects of her performances and loving every minute of all of them!

Rojo Fumbles Full-Length Ballet for SFB

Photograph of a scene from the original production of Raymonda at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in 1898 (public domain in the United States)

Last night saw the opening of the third production for the 2025 Repertory season of the San Francisco Ballet. Raymonda was the second full-length ballet of the season, following up on Manon, which began the season. The choreography was by Artistic Director Tamara Rojo, based on a version that she created in January of 2022 for the English National Ballet. “For the record” (as they say), I first encountered this ballet in its entirety when Mikhail Baryshnikov staged it for American Ballet Theatre in 1980.

The original narrative is set in Hungary, where the title character is the fiancé of the crusader knight Jean de Brienne. Wedding preparations are interrupted with the arrival of the Saracen knight Abderakhman. The narrative then wanders into the dream world in which Abderakhman woos Raymonda. This is where different productions vary in what happens next. However, ultimately, Abderakhman is slain by Jean de Brienne by the end of the second act (which may or may not take place in that dream world). The third act is then devoted entirely to Raymonda’s wedding ceremony.

Rojo decided to shift the narrative from a timeless fairy tale to the Crimean War. The extended episode in the dream world is significantly reduced, but the result is a muddled account of who is on which side of the brutal battle in Crimea. The serious balletomane would probably do well to set aside any effort to make sense of the story and just treat the entire program as a series of corps de ballet performances with interjections of solo and duo efforts. In that context the music by Alexander Glazunov provides little more than “background;” but in last night’s performance it was at least given a moderately engaging interpretation in the orchestra pit by conductor Martin West.

This then raises the obvious question from the viewer in the audience: Is it worth the time to muddle through all those episodes strung together by a flimsy excuse for a narrative? The good news is that, for the most part, last night performers were in fine form when it came to executing the choreography they had been taught. The scenery may have been ambiguous, but it certainly did not distract the viewer from the dancers. The only real question is whether or not an entire evening should be spent on a series of well-performed episodes in the context of an overall “concept” that never rose above the level of “muddled.”

SFCM Highlights: March, 2025

Last month saw a modest diversity of highlighted events at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) This month will be downright sparse, with only two events of note, one of which will be given two performances and both taking place during the same week. All three will begin at 7:30 p.m., and the following summaries will provide the necessary hyperlinks for the respective dates:

Tuesday, March 11: This month’s visiting artist for Chamber Music Tuesday will be violist Kim Kashkashian. There will be only two works on the program; and, presumably, she will perform with SFCM students for both of them. The first half of the program will be devoted entirely to Gabriel Fauré’s Opus 45, his second piano quartet composed in the key of G minor. The intermission will be followed by Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 97, his string quintet in E-flat major.

Playbill cover for the 1974 Broadway production of Candide (Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7501091)

Friday, March 14, and Saturday, March 15: The next production to be presented by SFCM Opera began as a Broadway musical inspired by a novella by Voltaire, which composer Leonard Bernstein preferred to call a “comic operetta.” This was Candide, which opened at the Martin Beck Theatre on December 1, 1956, in a production directed by Tyrone Guthrie. The production will be directed by Frederic Wake-Walker, and SFCM Music Director Edwin Outwater will conduct.

SFS: A Disconcerting Evening with Robin Ticciati

Visiting conductor Robin Ticciati (photograph by Benjamin Ealovega, courtesy of SFS)

Conductor Robin Ticciati’s debut with the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) in January of 2023 could not have been more memorable. He coupled a solid account of Gustav Mahler’s fourth symphony in G major in the second half of the program with the SFS premiere of the first violin concerto composed by Jörg Widmann in the first. Last night he returned to Davies Symphony Hall, and the performance could not have been more forgettable.

While he could not previously done a better job of managing the wide dynamic range of Mahler’s symphony, last night’s dynamic range was reduced (with only a few exceptions) to loud and louder. This was particularly evident during the second half of the program, which was devoted entirely to Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Opus 27 (second) symphony in E minor. This provided yet another example of the composer’s fondness for triplet passages. However, it also recalled the anecdote of how the music critic Julius Korngold dismissed the efforts of his composer son Erich Wolfgang Korngold with the injunction, “Don’t bathe!” Particularly in the third (Adagio) movement, Ticciati’s interpretation came across as little more than a bubble bath.

The first half of the program was devoted entirely to Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 58 (fourth) piano concerto in G major. The soloist was Francesco Piemontesi, and conductor and soloist came across as made for each other. More often than not, Piemontesi’s fingers approached the keyboard as if they were jackhammers; but his approach seemed to complement Ticciati’s rhetorical evocations of “scowling Beethoven.” Those that take music history seriously tend to agree that Opus 58 was one of Beethoven’s finest efforts, but Ticciati’s partnership with Piemontesi reduced all those efforts to little more than trivia.

Hopefully, things will pick up again when Elim Chan returns to the Davies podium in about two weeks.