According to my archives, vocalist Theo Bleckmann made his last San Francisco Performances appearance in October 2021, when he was one of the contributors to the PIVOT Festival. Last night in Herbst Theatre he presented a full-evening performance of the West Coast premiere of note to a friend with words and music both by composer David Lang. This is a cycle of seven songs with three instrumental movements performed by a string quartet. The vocalist for this occasion was Theo Bleckmann joined by the Attacca Quartet, whose members are violinists Amy Schroeder and Dominic Salerni, Nathan Schram on viola, and cellist Andrew Yee.
The title was inspired by a letter written by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, best known for the two short stories that were appropriated for the script of the film Rashomon. The letter was a suicide note, and that theme of death provides the context for the movements in the song cycle. These were clearly the makings of an intense musical journey, but I came across with the feeling that Lang never captured any of that intensity.
Instead, the performance amounted to a rather dreary one-thing-after-another affair. I was reminded of John Madden’s Hey, Wait A Minute? I Wrote a Book, except that Madden always had interesting things to say. Mind you, composing a chamber opera is not the same as writing a book; but I came away from both the music and the libretto with the impression that note to a friend was created for the sake of creating it with little sense of motivation other than Akutagawa’s influence.
Back in 2021 Bleckmann’s PIVOT performance left me with an overall sense of satisfaction. Sadly, last night was an entirely different affair. Perhaps Lang was not the right fit for this vocal work (or Akutagawa was not the right fit for Lang).
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