Pop! Goes the One Found Sound Gala

Last night my wife and I returned to Heron Arts for the final concert presented by One Found Sound. The title of the program was Divas Live! As might be expected, it involved a generous share of performances of music composed and/or sung by women primarily in the pop repertoire, such as Gloria Estefan, Dolly Parton, and Cher (the first three accounted for on the program). Those that share my own preferences could enjoy the efforts of three instrumental “divas,” two violinists and a violist in the One Found Sound ensemble.

Violinist Darren Sagawa (photograph from the Web site for the Carmel Bach Festival, where he is Music Librarian)

The first of these was Darren Sagawa (hence the scare quotes above), who performed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 373 rondo for violin and orchestra in C major. This was followed shortly thereafter by Annamarie Arai-López performing a movement from the “Summer” concerto in Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, RV 315. Finally, violist Alexandra Simpson delivered a dynamite account of a set of variations composed by Niccolò Paganini.

That said, pop ruled over the evening in both spirit and practice. This made for a long evening; but, for those that like diversity in their music, there was never a dull moment. The full ensemble was as attentive as ever with a festive spirit that was never lagging.

San Francisco Chamber Orchestra’s “Revolution”

Last night the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra (SFCO) brought its second MainStage concert performance to Herbst Theatre. The title of the program was The Revolutionary Artist, and it would be fair to say that each of the three selections was revolutionary in its own way. The second half of the program was devoted entirely to Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 92 (seventh) symphony in A major. By the time Beethoven composed this piece in 1812, his departures from past conventions had become well-known to his audiences; but he still had a knack for pulling unconventional rabbits out of unexpected hats.

The first half of the program was unconventional simply for extracting single movements from multi-movement compositions. Mind you, taking on a single movement from a concerto by Niccolò Paganini is a major undertaking; and, since the soloist was fourteen-year old Lisa Saito (a student of Concertmaster Robin Sharp), jumping through all of the hoops of the Opus 6 violin concerto movement was challenge enough! Saito’s performance was consistently solid and just as consistently balanced in her engagement with the orchestra. Mind you, that single movement is a rather long-winded one; but conductor Jory Fankuchen knew how to maintain a pace that would fit in with Saito’s approach to interpretation.

The cover illustration of Louise Farrenc on her Erato album, recognizing the attention she deserved last night

This opening movement was preceded by a finale: the Allegro movement concluding the last of Louise Farrenc’s three symphonies, Opus 36 composed in the key of G minor. Some readers may recall that I came to know all three of these through an Erato release performed by the Insula orchestra conducted by Laurence Equilbey. However, I wrote about that listening experience in June of 2023; and, by last night, most of those thoughts had faded from memory. Nevertheless, G minor tends to be a good key for getting audience attention; and, once again, Fankuchen found the right way to engage the audience from the very beginning of the evening.

SFCO MainStage to Ring in New Year

Having accounted for the commitment of the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra (SFCO) to Thanksgiving weekend a few days ago, I can now return attention to the MainStage season. The second program in that season has been scheduled over three performances which will bridge the current year to the new one. However, there will be no “seasonal influence” on the programming.

Violinist Lisa Saito (from the Eventbrite Web page for her performance)

Instead, the second half of the program will be devoted to one of the most familiar and popular of Ludwig van Beethoven’s nine symphonies. This will be the Opus 92 (seventh) symphony in A major. The first half will be limited to two single-movement selections. The first of these will be the final movement of Louise Farrenc’s Opus 36, the last of her three symphonies, composed in the key of G minor. This will be followed by the first movement of Niccolò Paganini’s Opus 6, his first violin concerto in E-flat major (requiring the violin to be tuned a semitone high). Violinist Lisa Saito will make her debut as soloist.

The San Francisco performance of this program will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, December 30. The venue will Herbst Theatre, located in the Civic Center at 401 Van Ness Avenue, across the street from City Hall. There will be no charge for admission, but those planning to attend should consider making reservations through the Eventbrite Web page for this offering.

TwoSet Violin Finally Comes to Davies

Brett Yang and Eddy Chen taking a bow with their pianist Sophie Druml (photograph by Cecilia Tan, from The Strad)

Some readers may recall that the TwoSet Violin duo of violinists Brett Yang and Eddy Chen was scheduled to perform in Davies Symphony Hall during last July’s Summer with the Symphony season. That debut recital had to be postponed, but last night they finally made it to Davies to perform their Sacrilegious Games program. The “sacrilege” was, of course, their approach to the violin repertoire. The result was an engaging evening of physical comedy recalling the past antics of Peter Schickele and Victor Borge. Indeed, their (intentionally) delayed appearance almost served as an homage to Schickele’s frantic opening shtik.

In this case, however, the waiting was ameliorated by the appearance of their piano accompanist, Sophie Druml, who took the stage right on time. She warmed-up the audience with an arrangement (her own?) of the last of the “24 Caprices for Solo Violin” by Niccolò Paganini. This was followed by music from the “Winter” concerto from Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons involving a charade of violin-playing.

Of course both of the violinists had a solid command of technique. When they were not poking fun at the classics in all directions, Chen delivered a thoroughly engaging solo account of the opening passage in Jean Sibelius’ Opus 47 violin concerto, and Yang was just as rock-solid in his delivery of Camille Saint-Saëns Opus 20 “Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso.” However, the heart of the program was the diversity of their takes on comedy. Most memorable, probably, was when both of them played the last of the Paganini Caprices while spinning hula hoops. The most ambitious undertaking, however, was probably taking “La campanella” (the theme of the final movement of Paganini’s second violin concerto) and performing it in a series of styles as a journey through music history: baroque, classical, romantic, twentieth-century, jazz, and K-pop.

It’s nice to know that Davies can be just as welcoming to physical comedy as it is to “serious music!”

A Violin-Guitar Sonata by Niccoló Paganini

Yesterday evening provided the opportunity to catch up on the latest OMNI on-Location video on YouTube, released this past Monday. The guitarist for the performance was Aniello Desiderio, performing with his brother Gennaro on violin. Some readers may recall that Aniello will conclude this season’s Dynamite Guitars series, presented by the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts, towards the end of April of next year.

Gennaro and Aniello Desiderio performing in an engaging setting of books (screenshot from the Omni on-Location YouTube video)

The Desiderio brothers performed the first of eighteen sonatas for violin and guitar composed by Niccolò Paganini under the collective title Centone di sonate. This was a three-movement composition in A minor with an opening Larghetto, followed by a Tempo de marcia, and concluding with a Rondoncino. The entire performance ran for about six and a half minutes. The performance was filmed this past January 10 at the Residenza d'epoca "Palazzo Cusani" in the Italian city of Solopaca. As the above photograph shows, the performance took place in a venue with a serious respect for books.

I have to confess that, more often than not, I tend to find Paganini’s symphonic music to be more than a little tedious, if not downright heavy-handed. This may be because his primary mission was to flaunt his own violin virtuosity. This duo sonata, on the other hand, is far more intimate. Rather than soaring above a roaring orchestra, the violin is in intimate conversation with the guitar. (The fact that the entire sonata is shorter than the first movement of any of Paganini’s concertos is probably the major factor in that intimacy!) Clearly, there was a side of Paganini that placed the music above his own ego!

David Oistrakh’s Rarities on Warner

Readers may recall that last week I began my venture into the 31 CDs classified as Premières, Rarities & Live Performances in the Warner Remastered Edition box set collection of recordings of performances by Russian violinist David Oistrakh. This began with an examination of the two CDs identified as Early Recordings. I am now in a position to discuss those albums associated with the “Rarities” category.

The most unique of these is the complete recording of a recital that Oistrakh performed in Moscow on February 16, 1960. He was accompanied by Vladimir Yampolsky; and the “heart” of the program consisted of three sonatas, each from a different century. Oistrakh began with Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1019 duo sonata in G major. He then leap-frogged into the late Romantic period with the last of Johannes Brahms’ three violin sonatas, Opus 108 in D minor. Late Brahms was followed by the Opus 1 of Karen Khachaturian (nephew of Aram), a three-movement sonata without a key specification.

Presumably, the rest of the album involved the encore selections, of which there were five, most of which were probably unfamiliar to much of the audience. Oistrakh began with the prelude-fugue coupling that constituted a solo violin partita by Alfred Mendelssohn. This was followed by the Opus 7 “Ciaccona” by Giovanni Battista Vitali, composed in 1682 for two violins and continuo violone and arranged for violin and piano by Léopold Charlier. This was followed by Oistrakh’s own arrangement of the sixth of the nine piano arrangements by Franz Liszt of “valses-caprices” by Franz Schubert. The encores were concluded with two works by twentieth-century composers: Sergei Prokofiev (his “Melody,” Opus 35b, Number 3) and Maurice Ravel (the familiar “Tzigane”).

Sergei Taneyev (from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Two of the CDs are identified as “Sonata Rarities.” They live up to that title through the composers they represent (in order of appearance): Nikolai Medtner, Mieczysław Weinberg, Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov, Sergei Taneyev, Zara Levina, and Wilhelm Stenhammar. There is also a “Bravura” album, which is framed by Niccolò Paganini at the beginning (with five of his Opus 1 caprices, beginning and concluding with arrangements by Fritz Kreisler and Leopold Auer, respectively) and Pablo de Sarasate’s Opus 25 (“Carmen Concert Fantasy”) at the end.

Finally, there is an album classified as “Vignettes.” This consists of 21 tracks, all of which are shorter than ten minutes in duration. Nine of the tracks are premiere releases. They are framed by arrangements by Carl Flesch of arias by George Frideric Handel at the beginning and the “Mazurka-oberek” by Alexander Glazunov on the final track.

Personally, I can attest to the “Rarities” classification. Yes, there were many familiar encounters (which the reader will easily recognize above). However, my mind is still trying to “digest” the abundance of “first contacts” I experienced while listening to the six CDs in this category!

Omni Foundation Hosts Debut of Artyom Dervoed

Last night St. Mark’s Lutheran Church hosted the second guitar recital of the month presented by the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts in its DYNAMITE GUITARS series. Artyom Dervoed was the first Russian to win two of the most prestigious guitar contests, the Michele Pittaluga Guitar competition in Italy and the Her Royal Highness Princess Cristina Competition in Spain. In the United States his touring plans have taken him to Carnegie Hall in New York and Jordan Hall in Boston.

Manzanares el Real, one of the castles “portrayed” in Moreno Torroba’s Castillos de España (photograph by Ramón Durán, from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license)

The major work that Dervoed presented last night was one of the most ambitious collections for guitar composed in the twentieth century. Castillos de España (castles of Spain) amounts of a catalog of relatively brief musical reflections on fourteen different venues, each a castle that had once dominated a particular region of the Iberian peninsula. The music was composed by Federico Moreno Torroba and published in two volumes in 1970 and 1978 respectively. The first volume accounts for eight of the pieces (and I know this because Andrés Segovia made his recording of them in December of 1969), leaving the remaining six for the second volume.

I must confess that ignorance of the “subject matter” probably impeded the extent of my listening capacity. Dervoed presented his own ordering of the individual movements, but each was a self-contained miniature. The venue that particularly seized my attention was “Redaba,” whose musical realization was engagingly cryptic. This occurred around the middle of Dervoed’s ordering, perhaps to serve as a prod to the listener’s attention!

There was a similar prod in the opening selection that preceded Castillos. This was the “Elogio de la Danza” composed by Leo Brouwer. This may have been one of his more prankish undertakings, since the respective rhetorics of elegy and dance seemed to be at cross-purposes! It certainly served to seize listener attention, presumably to prepare for the more extensive journey that was to follow. Another “prod” began the second half of the program, when Dervoed decided to play the two solo guitar preludes by Heitor Villa-Lobos in reverse numerical order! (Villa-Lobos was no slouch in composing for guitar, and that included preludes. This is one of those cases where a catalog number would have been helpful.)

If Moreno Torroba’s suite was not ambitious enough, the major undertaking in the second half of the program was a transcription of the third (and final) movement of Niccolò Paganini’s Opus 7, his second violin concerto in B minor. That movement is best known by its nickname, “La Campanella.” (Fun fact: Paganini’s instrumentation for this concerto included a serpent!) Dervoed delivered a thoroughly engaging account of this chestnut with the sort of panache that would probably have brought a smile to the composer’s face. He then concluded the program with a piece given the subtitle “Omaggio a Paganini,” the “Capriccio Diabolico” by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Dervoed introduced it as “a great piece to play in church,” and the audience definitely appreciated his sense of humor.

Indeed, they received him well at the conclusion of the program. As might be expected, he returned for an encore. Unfortunately, he did not introduce either the composer or the title. Nevertheless, his audience was still enthusiastic.

An Unlikely but Highly Satisfying Coupling

Last night Esa-Pekka Salonen returned to Davies Symphony Hall in his capacity as Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony to present his next series of programs. His program may have struck many as an unlikely pairing of composers that, given a time machine, would not have had much, if anything, to do with each other. The first half of the program presented the complete score that Igor Stravinsky composed for the ballet “Pulcinella.” The intermission was then followed by Johannes Brahms’ Opus 77 violin concerto in D major.

“Pulcinella” was the first score that Stravinsky composed for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes following his “Russian trilogy” of “The Firebird,” “Petrushka,” and “The Rite of Spring.” In 1919 Diaghilev recruited choreographer Léonide Massine to create a ballet based on the stock characters of Neapolitan commedia dell'arte and suggested to Stravinsky that he arrange compositions that were, at the time, attributed to Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. Stravinsky, of course, could not leave well enough alone and basically overhauled the source material, particularly with outrageous approaches to instrumentation that were even more farcical than commedia tradition. Since some of the sources were songs, he added soprano, tenor, and bass vocalists to his instrumentation.

Having never seen Massine’s choreography, I have no idea how farcical it was; but farce was definitely the order of the day in the music Stravinsky provided. This was most evident in just about every intrusion by the trombonist, but there are no end of loopy eccentricities in the combinations of instruments. These included interplay between a string quartet with added bass and the ripieno string section along with a plethora of imaginative passages for the winds.

Last night the concertino strings were violinists Alexander Barantschik and Dan Carlson, Yun Jie Liu on viola, cellist Rainer Eudeikis, and Scott Pingel on bass. The vocalists were mezzo Sasha Cooke, tenor Nicholas Phan, and bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni. Given that Salonen had recorded the full score with the London Sinfonietta for an album still available from Sony, he was consistently on top of every gesture and nuance. The result last night was exhilarating from start to finish, making it hard for me to contain my delight with the entire experience.

Violinist Julia Fischer (©Uwe Arens, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony)

Just as stimulating was the return of violinist Julia Fischer as soloist for the Brahms concerto. I have never been disappointed by her performances, and she shaped every phrase in each of the three movements with a series of expressive stamps that made certain that this was not same-old-same-old Brahms. Her chemistry with Salonen could not have been better, however unlikely the pairing of the program had been. Audience reception made it clear that I was far from the only one to appreciate her return.

Taken as a whole, last night was a generous share of thoroughly engaging music. Nevertheless, it was clear that the audience would not let Fischer leave without an encore. She opted for the seventeenth of the 24 Caprices for solo violin by Niccolò Paganini. This is the one best known for its rapid-fire runs in the outer sections and the killer octaves in the middle. Fischer glided through the entire caprice without ever breaking a sweat, leaving the stage to allow a very satisfied audience to wend their ways home.

SFIPF: Tanya Gabrielian Solo Recital

Last night the San Francisco International Piano Festival (SFIPF) got off to a rocky start, at least for those of us that opted for a livestream of the performance. The performance took place in the Old First Presbyterian Church, presented by the Old First Concerts (O1C) series. O1C has been one of the best sources of live-streamed content, the result of an impressively rapid learning curve to compensate for pandemic conditions. Unfortunately, neither SFIPF Founder and Artistic Director Jeffrey LaDeur nor opening night solo recitalist Tanya Gabrielian seemed to know “the drill” when using a microphone for the benefit of both the immediate audience and the remote one. Presumably, those in the “physical” audience were satisfied; but those of us in cyberspace heard nothing but garbled text.

Fortunately, there were no faults at all when it came to listening to Gabrielian’s piano performance. This was good, since there was much to attract and hold the attention of the serious listener. Indeed, considerable imaginative thought seems to have gone into preparing the program.

The first half of the program consisted of eight relatively brief selections, all of which were transcriptions for solo piano by Alexander Siloti. The very idea of such transcriptions can be traced back at least as far as Franz Liszt (who, more often than not, added generous embellishments to the music being transcribed). Siloti may well have been as prodigious as Liszt in preparing transcriptions. These days, however, he is recalled for only one of them, Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 855a, the prelude from the E minor prelude-fugue coupling in the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier (BWV 855).

Gabrielian seems to have sympathized with those of us that feel we have had enough of that transcription in encore selections. Instead, she chose for her Bach selection the BWV 565 coupling of a toccata and fugue in the key of D minor. This was her opening selection, which proved to be effective for seizing the attention of the serious listener. Nevertheless, eight Siloti transcriptions tended to strain the attention of even the most serious and dedicated listener, sometimes because the music simply did not lend itself to transcription (Maurice Ravel’s setting of the Hebrew Kaddish text for solo vocalist) or because we have already heard it too many times (the last of Niccolò Paganini’s caprices, originally composed for solo violin). That was the final transcription that Gabrielian played, and I would have preferred her to wrap things up a bit sooner.

The second half of the program made for a diverse but somewhat odd collection. Gabrielian began with a short piece by Aaron Copland entitled “Three Moods,” which made for an engaging departure from what we usually expect of Copland. This was followed by the “Meditation for the Left Hand” by Leopold Godowsky, which provided Gabrielian with an opportunity to present the strength of her left hand. Nevertheless, the overall duration was too long and repetitive to sustain serious attention. The program then concluded with Carl Maria von Weber’s Opus 39 sonata in D minor, which overstayed its welcome even more exhaustively than Godowsky’s “Meditation” did.

This made for a long evening, but Gabrielian still had the energy for an encore (but not, apparently, any need to introduce it to the audience).

JIJI to Offer Only SFP Guitar Series Solo Recital

Next month will see two performances in this season’s San Francisco Performances (SFP) Guitar Series, presented jointly with the Dynamite Guitars Series of the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts. The first of these will be the eclectic recital to be presented by Dreamer’s Circus on March 3. This will be followed by the only solo recital in the SFP Series, which will take place a little over a week later.

JIJI (from the SFP Web page for ordering tickets)

The soloist for this performance will be Korean guitarist JIJI, who has emerged as a passionate advocate of new music. As a result, she has chosen to give a world premiere performance here in San Francisco. The composer is Michael Gilbertson, and the title of his composition has not yet been announced. Her performance of the Gilbertson composition will be followed by three other notable contemporary composers, Tania Leon, Krists Auznieks, and Gulli Björnsson. All four of these composers will be represented during the second half of the program.

In addition, the first half will present “Abigail” by contemporary composer Natalie Dietterich, whose work will be paired with three selections by the twentieth-century composer Frantz Casseus. At the other end of the timeline the program will begin with the sacred motet “Occhi io vissi di voi,” composed by the nun Claudia Sessa and published in 1613. The more familiar composers on the program will be Isaac Albéniz and Niccolò Paganini.

This performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 11. The venue will be Herbst Theatre, on the ground floor of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. Tickets are now on sale for $65 for premium seating in the Orchestra and the front and center of the Dress Circle, $55 for the Side Boxes, the center rear of the Dress Circle, and the remainder of the Orchestra, and $45 for the remainder of the Dress Circle and the Balcony. SFP has created a secure Web page for online purchases. Orders may also be placed by calling the SFP subscriber hotline at 415-677-0325, which is open for receiving calls between 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.

SFS Takes New Year Off to a Roaring Start

This afternoon in Davies Symphony Hall the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) launched the second half of its Orchestral Series with highly-charged gusto and diverse programming. That mood was established from the get-go as guest conductor Elim Chan took the stage to make her SFS debut. Her program began with a world premiere, Elizabeth Ogonek’s “Moondog,” composed with the support of an SFS commission. This was followed by the return of violinist James Ehnes serving as concerto soloist. This marked his return to Davies since his performance of Max Bruch’s Opus 26 (first) concerto in G minor in May of 2019. For this occasion he made a major shift in repertoire with Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 63 (second) violin concerto in G minor. The program was concluded following the intermission with a wildly energetic account of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 17 (second) symphony in C minor.

Elizabeth Ogonek taking her bow after the performance of her “Sleep & Remembrance” (photograph by Brittany Hosea, courtesy of SFS)

Ogonek established her SFS presence last year, when Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen conducted her “Sleep & Remembrance,” a contribution to an overall program that was awarded the status of the most memorable experience of last year for the month of March. “Moondog” distinguished itself as a study in which textures served as an alternative for more conventional approaches to thematic material. What was important was that Ogonek’s command of those textures was so solid that she could still create a piece that followed the familiar ternary form. Chan’s conducting made it clear that she understood everything about the nuts-and-bolts of the score well enough to provide the audience with a stimulating listening experience. Given that she has established a global presence, she may become a compelling agent for the qualities of Ogonek’s talents as a composer.

The Prokofiev concerto, on the other hand, has provided a vehicle for many violin soloists performing with SFS. Ehnes made his SFS debut in 2003, and I have been impressed with the consistent quality of his performances since then. He certainly was not shy in taking on the composer’s rough edges, and Chan knew exactly how to enhance those sharp qualities through balancing the wide variety of sonorities provided by the ensemble. While both of them were received enthusiastically by the audience, she made it a point to turn the spotlight over to Ehnes by encouraging him to taken an encore. He selected the sixteenth of Niccolò Paganini’s 24 caprices for solo violin (which happened to be dedicated to Rodolphe Kreutzer, whose name is better known thanks to Ludwig van Beethoven).

Assuming that the SFS musicians had sufficient time to “recharge” during the intermission, Chan pulled out all the stops in her interpretation of the Tchaikovsky symphony. This is a symphony that provides the attentive listener with a prodigious panoply of contrasting sonorities, and Chan knew exactly how to make sure that the uniqueness of each of those sonorities registered with the attentive listeners in the audience. Mind you, in the interest of those sonorities, there was more than a generous amount of thematic repetition; but Chan provided the best possible account for allowing listeners to appreciate and savor the differences. (She also seemed to relish the vigorous stroke on the gong at the climax of the final movement.)

For all of that diversity, it remains impressive that Ogonek should make as strong an impression with her second appearance as she did with her first; and I hope that Chan’s lightning will strike again in a not-too-distant future SFS season.

Gidon Kremer on DG: Nineteenth Century

As previously planned, my second account of the Deutsche Grammophon (DG) 22-CD box set of concerto recordings featuring violinist Gidon Kremer will focus on the nineteenth-century repertoire. This category accounts for the fewest number of selections. The composers are the “usual suspects” associated with this repertoire:

• Johannes Brahms: the Opus 77 concerto in D major along with the Opus 102 double concerto with cellist Mischa Maisky as the second soloist
• Felix Mendelssohn: the early (1822) concerto in D minor and the 1823 double concerto with pianist Martha Argerich (but not the warhorse Opus 64 concerto in E minor)
• Niccolò Paganini: the fourth concerto in D minor with cadenzas by Kremer
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: the Opus 35 concerto in D minor

Italian musicologist Pietro Spada, responsible for one of the less familiar compositions in Gidon Kremer’s repertoire (photographer unknown, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

The “non-concerto” selections are more interesting than the previously discussed Schubert offerings for a variety of reasons:

• The Paganini CD includes the “Sonata Varsavia,” which was composed around the same time as the fourth concerto. This is a set of variations on a mazurka composed by Józef Eisner, also scored for violin and orchestra. However, the orchestral parts were lost, meaning that only the solo music for the violin survived. Kremer’s recording presents an orchestra arrangement by the Italian musicologist Pietro Spada, and Kremer supplies his own cadenza for the sonata’s third movement.
• The Tchaikovsky concerto is coupled with the Opus 26 “Sérénade mélancolique” in B-flat major, also scored for violin and orchestra.
• Somewhat in the spirit of Tchaikovsky’s Opus 26 is the Opus 25 “Poème” by Ernest Chausson, which I have come to appreciate for how well it fits the scenario of Antony Tudor’s ballet “Jardin aux lilas” (lilac garden).
• A less familiar duo is the Opus 35 “Fantasia appassionata” composed by Henri Vieuxtemps; but none of his seven violin concertos, two of which (Opus 31 in D minor and Opus 37 in A minor) were recorded by Jascha Heifetz, are included in the Kremer collection.
• Least expected is an arrangement of the so-called “Dante” sonata. This was composed for solo piano and included in the second volume of Franz Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage (years of Pilgrimage), the “Italian” year. This composition was arranged by violin and string orchestra by Sergei Dreznin. As might be guessed, Kremer performs this with his own Kremerata Baltica ensemble.

What I found particularly interesting was that the Mendelssohn selections were accompanied by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. There is a prankish side of me that would like to believe that Kremer’s experience with this ensemble, which performs without a conductor, may have planted a seed for him that would later grow into his own Kremerata Baltica. The other selections basically involve a “usual suspects” list of DG conductors: Leonard Bernstein (Brahms), Riccardo Muti (Paganini), Lorin Maazel (Tchaikovsky), and Riccardo Chailly (Chausson and Vieuxtemps).

That said, my personal preferences are based on how Kremer departs from the “beaten path;” and those departures will probably guide the choices I make in subsequent listening experiences from this collection.

Augustin Hadelich’s Atterbury Sessions Recital

At the beginning of this year, when I announced the plans for Lara St. John’s schedule for The Atterbury House Sessions, I noted that the accompanist for the recital by violinist Augustin Hadelich had not yet been announced. It turned out that (s)he had not been announced because (s)he would have been superfluous. Hadelich had prepared a program entirely for solo violin.

Augustin Hadelich performing his Atterbury House Sessions recital (screen shot from the video being discussed)

There were minor modifications to the selections named this past January, but the program was no less engaging for those alterations. Most interesting was the attention given to Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, an Afro-American twentieth-century composer who was equally at home composing classical, jazz, and film music. He was also the only composer that provided two selections on the program. Hadelich began his performance with Perkinson’s three-movement suite Blue/s Forms, composed in 1979. The second offering also explored blues rhetoric, “Louisiana Blues Strut: A Cakewalk.” While I have been consistently impressed with Hadelich’s disciplined technique, I was struck by how, with all that discipline, he knew how to touch just the right nerves to capture the spirit of the blues.

Between these two selections Hadelich reminded his audience (tacitly, he never spoke during the entire video) that he had recorded all 24 caprices for solo violin that Niccolò Paganini collected as his Opus 1. Hadelich chose the ninth of these in E major, usually known by its nickname “La Chasse” (the hunt). In this ternary form piece the strings imitate both horns and flutes in the outer sections, while the middle section goes to town with double stops and ricochet (bouncing) bowing. I have listened to Hadelich play selections from Opus 1 as encore offerings, and I have been consistently impressed by his discipline and calm demeanor as he jumps through all of Paganini’s hoops.

He then concluded the program with Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1004 partita in D minor (having also recorded the complete set of solo sonatas and partitas). This is probably best known for the mammoth chaconne in the final movement. Once again, there was no arguing with his technical and expressive approaches to the music. However, given the rich content that preceded this selection, I found myself missing the usual customs of a recital. An intermission break prior to the Bach performance would have given conscious attention a bit of rest before taking on all that both Bach and Hadelich had to offer through this music.

Fortunately, now that the live-stream has concluded, there is now a YouTube Web page of the entire program.

Profil’s Anthology of Violinist Michael Rabin

courtesy of Naxos of America

A little over a week ago, Profil released its latest archival anthology, modestly entitled A Genius on the Violin. The collection itself is more modest than the title, since it consists of four CDs of recordings of the American violinist Michael Rabin. To be fair, however, Rabin’s life was tragically short. He died on January 19, 1972 at the age of 35. A neurological condition had begun to undermine his sense of balance. He had taken one fall during a recital at Carnegie Hall, and a more serious fall in his New York City apartment was the cause of his death.

Rabin was born in New York on May 2, 1936, the son of a violinist in the New York Philharmonic. This sets him apart from the three distinguished violinists that were raised in San Francisco: Yehudi Menuhin (April 22, 1916, leaving New York for San Francisco at a very early age), Ruggiero Ricci (July 24, 1918, born in San Bruno), and Isaac Stern (July 21, 1920, born in Poland but arriving in San Francisco when he was fourteen months old). Ricci may be the most interesting point of reference, since in 1947 he was the first violinist to record the complete set of 24 Caprices for solo violin composed by Niccolò Paganini. However, while Ricci was over 25 when he made that recording, Rabin recorded the full collection in 1951, when he was about ten years younger.

That recording was made for EMI, now a division of Sony Music; so it is not included in Profil’s collection. Paganini is represented only by the Opus 6 (first) concerto in D major in a 1954 recording made with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Lovro von Matačiċ. The other “usual concerto suspects” are, in order of appearance, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Alexander Glazunov, Henryk Wieniawski, Felix Mendelssohn, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In the same vein there is also a recording of Max Bruch’s Opus 46 “Scottish Fantasy.”

On the other hand there is one significant departure from all of this familiarity: Paul Creston’s Opus 78 (second) violin concerto. Creston wrote this concerto for Rabin. Failure to mention this composition on Rabin’s Wikipedia page constitutes a serious sin of omission. The concerto was given its premiere performance on November 17, 1960 with Georg Solti conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic; and the Profil collection concludes with the “live” recording of that event. Creston is probably even more out of fashion than Rabin these days, and any attempt to restore attention among serious listeners deserves significant appreciation.

The “chamber” repertoire is confined to the third for the four CDs in this collection. Johann Sebastian Bach is represented only by the BWV 1005 solo violin sonata in C major, but this is one of the best examples of Rabin’s consummate skill at balancing rich expressiveness against intense focus on technique. The two sonatas are the third, in the key of G major, of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 30 collection and Gabriel Fauré’s Opus 13 (first) sonata in A major. The pianist for both of these selections is Lothar Broddack.

This is a disappointingly modest collection. To be fair, however, the six CDs compiled for the EMI collection are not much richer in content; and they do not include the Creston concerto. There are other releases that include a recording of this premiere performance, but Profil gives the concerto an extra jolt of significance through the context that the entire collection sets.

Black Cedar To Give a Morning Concert on Tuesday

Black Cedar has just announced the plans for its 2019 Fall Concert Tour. Regular readers probably know by now that this is the name of the rather unique trio consisting of flutist Kris Palmer (whose instrument is made of black wood), Steve Lin (playing a guitar made of cedar), and cellist Isaac Pastor-Chermak (whose instrument is neither black nor cedar). Since the San Francisco leg of the tour will be taking place this coming Tuesday, I felt it would be helpful to put out the word sooner rather than later.

The program that the trio will be playing throughout the entire tour is very similar to the one that they brought to the Main Branch of the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) this past June. It will feature two of the three commissioned pieces performed at SFPL, “Tres Colores” by Javier Contreras, which explores the sonorous possibilities of the three instruments played by the trio, and “In The Spring” by Andre Gueziec. They will also revisit Niccolò Paganini’s terzetto for violin, cello, and guitar, with Palmer playing the violin part on her flute. The program will begin with the trio sonata from Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1079, The Musical Offering, scored for flute, violin, and continuo. In this case the violin part will be played by Lin, with Palmer on flute and Pastor-Chermak providing continuo. The program will conclude with their own arrangement of Astor Piazzolla’s “Oblivion.”

This will be a late morning concert, beginning at 10:30 p.m. this coming Tuesday, September 10. The venue will be the Plaza Social Club at Rhoda Goldman Plaza, which is located at 2180 Post Street, which is near the northeast corner of Scott Street. Admission will be free, but all will be welcome to join the Plaza Social Club as members. Those wishing further information about the Club can call the Director at 415-449-3849.

Violinist Ruggiero Ricci’s “Showpieces”

from the Amazon.com Web page for this recording

My listening activities have now advanced me to the third of the three box sets in the 1918–2018 Ruggiero Ricci Centenary Edition, released by RHINE CLASSICS. Those who have been following this site regularly know that I have already written about the collections for concertos and sonatas. The “subtitle” for the remaining box is “showpieces,” which I originally took as “a euphemism for ‘encore favorites.’” This anticipation turned out to be faulty. However, like the other two collections, this box is based on remastered “discovered tapes,” previously unreleased recordings from both concert and studio settings made between 1946 and 1986. For those following this journey into Ricci’s recorded repertoire, 1946 the earliest start date of the three boxes; and 1986 is the latest end date.

Personally, I am not sure that I would classify some of the recordings in this collection as “showy.” Indeed, there is a bland, if not tedious, quality in Ricci’s performance of Igor Stravinsky’s Suite italienne. This is the suite for violin and piano of arranged excerpts from the score for the one-act ballet “Pulcinella” that Stravinsky prepared in 1933, working with violinist Samuel Dushkin (not to be confused with the suite for cello and piano that Stravinsky prepared with Gregor Piatigorsky, which has the same title). The recording was taken from a Carnegie Hall recital given on October 5, 1947; and, curiously, Ricci chose to omit the Scherzino movement. Given his technical skills in taking on Niccolò Paganini’s Opus 1 caprices, it is hard to imagine that he would have passed on the Scherzino for being too difficult.

Indeed, Paganini can be found on each of the four CDs in this collection; and he may be the motivating force behind the “showpieces” label. The booklet enumerates the aforementioned six audio recordings that Ricci made of Opus 1 in its entirety, as well as the two video documents. The fourth CD in this collection bumps the audio count up to seven. The recording was made at the Teatro Communale in Monfalcone on November 21, 1986. For the record, my own recording from among these options is the one produced by Vox in 1973, which includes the premiere recording of the “Caprice d’adieu” (farewell caprice), a set of variations on an original theme. Sadly, from a technical point of view, the 1986 concert recording comes nowhere near the polish of the 1973 studio document.

At the end of the day, the greatest satisfaction will be found in Ricci’s performance of Paul Hindemith’s third solo violin sonata (Opus 31, Number 2), composed in 1923. In terms of my own personal listening, this made for a welcome complement to Hindemith’s 1935 sonata in E major for violin and piano, which I had recently encountered on the RHINE CLASSICS collection of recordings of the violinist Ivry Gitlis. Perhaps the “showpieces” collection was conceived simply to tie up any “loose ends” in the recordings that RHINE CLASSICS had discovered. However, much as I admire completeness, that “showpieces” collection has little to show of Ricci at his best.

Violinist Ruggiero Ricci: Sonata Soloist

from the Amazon.com Web page for this recording

Following my introduction to the 1918–2018 Ruggiero Ricci Centenary Edition, consisting of remastered “discovered tapes” and released by Taiwan-based RHINE CLASSICS, in which I discussed concerto recordings, I shall now shift my attention the sonatas collection. Compared to the six CDs of concertos collection, the sonatas album consists of only four CDs; and, among them, only three of the CDs are devoted primarily to sonatas. The first CD in the set consists mostly (but not entirely) of shorter pieces recorded at recitals. On the other hand the sonatas album covers a somewhat wider time span, 1952 to 1984, compared with the concerto recordings made between 1951 and 1978. Like the concertos collection, the recordings were made both at concert performances and in studio sessions.

In terms of content, those already familiar with RCA’s Heifetz Collection will find a more-than-generous amount of overlap. I therefore feel a strong obligation to point out the one major offering that is not in the recorded repertoire of Jascha Heifetz. This is Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 80 violin sonata in F minor, the first of the two that he composed. One reason that the second sonata is more familiar is that it was originally composed as a flute sonata (Opus 94 in D major) and subsequently reworked into the Opus 94a violin sonata (also in D major) for David Oistrakh.

The numbering of these sonatas is a bit deceptive. Opus 94 was completed in 1942, and the violin arrangement was written the following year. On the other hand, while Prokofiev began work on Opus 80 in 1938, he did not complete it until 1946; and its premiere performance was given by Oistrakh. The author of this sonata’s Wikipedia page calls it “one of the darkest and most brooding of the composer’s works;” and that author will get no argument from me over this assertion.

Prokofiev himself described some of the passages as depicting “wind passing through a graveyard.” To some extent, the sonata is comparable in rhetoric to Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 65 (eighth) symphony, composed in 1943 when Shostakovich’s sense of war-weariness was at its darkest. Prokofiev’s Opus 80 was composed in a similar time frame, even if the war was over when he was putting on the finishing touches.

Ricci’s performance was recorded in a radio studio in Saarbrücken in 1964 during a live broadcast. His accompanist was Helmuth Barth. It was preceded by two far more familiar compositions, Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1016 sonata for violin and keyboard in E major and Johannes Brahms’ Opus 108 (third) sonata in D minor. Brahms had explored all of the dark rhetoric frequently associated with D minor in Opus 108, and Ricci never stinted in honoring Brahms’ rhetorical stance. Nevertheless, the  Prokofiev sonata makes Opus 108 feel like a walk in the park; and, given how seldom this sonata gets recorded, Ricci’s approach to Opus 80 comes close to making the entire album worth the price of admission.

Nevertheless, I feel it necessary to point out that Bach does not to provide cards in Ricci’s strong suit. The account of BWV 1016 is at least satisfactory, but I have to wonder whether this may have been due to guidance coming from Barth. On the other hand the collection also includes two of the solo sonatas, BWV 1001 in G minor and BWV 1003 in A minor. Both of these were recorded from concert recitals, BWV 1001 at Carnegie Hall in 1958 and BWV 1003 in the Grand Hall of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in 1984. Most disappointing is Ricci’s approach to the fugue movements in both of these sonatas, which seem more focused on playing the right notes at the right time than on the underlying grammar of subjects and episodes. The Carnegie performance definitely sounds strained, reinforcing my personal bias that neither the space itself nor the audiences it draws are particularly receptive where Bach (or anything pre-Classical, for that matter) is concerned.

At the more positive extreme, however, there are the selections from the 24 caprices of Niccolò Paganini’s Opus 1. According to his Wikipedia page, Ricci made six audio recordings of Opus 1 in its entirety, the first four originally released on LP and the other two after the transition to CD. (The earliest of these marked the first time Opus 1 had been recorded in its entirety.) There are also two videos available, one made for BBC Scotland and the other an unedited account of a performance at the University of Michigan (where Ricci taught) in 1987.

Taken as a whole, the tracks that offer considerable satisfaction significantly outnumber the disappointing ones.

Black Cedar’s Recent Commissioned Works

The Black Cedar trio of Kris Palmer, Steve Lin, and Isaac Pastor-Chermak (from a Black Cedar Web page)

This afternoon Black Cedar returned to the Main Branch of the San Francisco Public Library to give what has become its annual free public concert. The group began as the duo of flutist Kris Palmer and guitarist Steve Lin in 2011. The name of the ensemble had to do with Palmer playing a flute made of black wood and Lin playing a guitar made of cedar. The duo is now a trio, joined by cellist Isaac Pastor-Chermak (whose instrument is neither black nor cedar).

The heading on the program sheet stated Local Composers in Public Libraries, and the program served as a showcase for three pieces completed in 2017 and 2018, all commissioned by Black Cedar. Two of those composers have strong ties to the Bay Area. Last year Andre Gueziec was awarded has Bachelor of Music degree with Magna Cum Laude honors by San Jose State University; and, at around the same time, Ursula Kwong-Brown received her Ph.D. in Music Composition & New Media from the University of California at Berkeley. On the other hand, Javier Contreras, who won Black Cedar’s 2018 Commission Competition, is based in Chile.

What is most important about all three compositions is that each found its own distinctive way to work with what is decidedly a non-standard combination of instruments. Indeed, the title of Contreras’ piece, “Tres Colores,” entailed an examination of not only the unique sonorities of each of the three instruments but also a rich study of how those sonorities could be blended in different combinations. The entire “package” was delivered with the sort of expressive rhetoric one frequently finds in the music of Astor Piazzolla, clearly stated themes that lend themselves to different aspects of expression and traverse a landscape of differing shades of moody qualities. “Tres Colores” was clearly a major undertaking; but those willing to listen to it attentively were richly rewarded.

The pieces by local composers were both programmatic, but each in its own unique way. Kwong-Brown’s “In Transit” was inspired by the sounds encountered while commuting on BART. This was not so much a matter of trying to imitate those sounds as it was one of capturing familiar rhythms and, every now and then, pitch contours. Given the extent to which BART has recently been besieged by negative connotations, “In Transit” served as a playful suggestion of how one might occupy the mind when the daily commute feels too much like tedium.

Gueziec’s “In the Spring,” on the other hand, took a more naturalistic approach to a setting with far more positive connotations. The score successfully avoiding falling back on any “stock” denotations of familiar attributes of the spring. Nevertheless, the overall impression was one of spirits refreshed after the long nights of winter.

The program also included two older compositions, both written for instrumental resources other than those of Black Cedar. The earlier of these was the first two movements of the trio sonata from Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1079, The Musical Offering. The entire collection was dedicated to Frederick the Great; and the trio sonata featured an upper voice for flute, which was the instrument that Frederick himself played. As Bach wrote the sonata, the other upper voice was to be played by violin; but that part was taken by Lin, while cellist Pastor-Chermak provided the continuo. Palmer and Lin have played together for so long that their blend of those two upper voices could not have been more engaging.

The opening selection was a terzetto that Niccolò Paganini scored for violin, cello, and guitar. In this case Palmer took on the violin part with her flute. Considering Paganini’s tendency to push violin virtuosity for all it was worth, she did an excellent job in giving an effective account of the marks on the score pages without ever suggesting that she was trying to imitate violin virtuosity. Thus the attentive listener could take full satisfaction in this trio as it was played, rather than as the composer had intended it to be played.

IIC to Salute Genoa with a Concert

In Italy the Festa della Repubblica (republic day), which has been the national holiday of Italy since 1946, marking the ends of both Fascism and the Second World War, is celebrated on June 2. This year the Mayor of Genoa, Marco Bucci, will be visiting San Francisco to honor the occasion among this city’s Italian residents (including those of Italian descent). The Italian Cultural Institute (Istituto Italiano de Cultura, IIC) will contribute to the occasion by hosting a double concert to pay homage to the city of Genoa.

This will be a “double” concert because the program will be divided between two separate ensembles. One will be the duo of violinist Andrea Cardinale and guitarist José Scanu. While the guitar tends to be associated with influences from the Iberian peninsula, both Gioachino Rossini and Niccolò Paganini composed duets for this pair of instruments. Both composers are part of the Cardinale-Scanu repertoire, which extends forward in time to the present day.

Quartetto Dàidalos in performance (from a concert review posted by Tempo Stretto)

The other group will be Quartetto Dàidalos, founded in Novara in October of 2014 by four friends with a shared desire to explore the chamber music repertoire. Those friends are violinists Anna Molinari and Stefano Raccagni, violist Lorenzo Lombardo, and cellist Lucia Molinari. As might be suspected, their repertoire includes both Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert; and, because they are Italian, it also includes Giuseppe Verdi’s only string quartet.

This concert will begin at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 5, and will probably last for about two hours. IIC is located in the Civic Center at 601 Van Ness Avenue, Suite F. Admission is free, but registration is required to assure having a place. IIC has created a registration page specific for this event. Anyone who registers may also add the names of a maximum of two additional guests. Those wishing further information may call IIC at 415-788-7142.

Hadelich Debuts on Warner with Paganini

from Amazon.com

San Francisco readers may recall that, this past October, violinist Augustin Hadelich returned to perform as a soloist with the San Francisco Symphony. His selection could not have been more mainstream: Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 64 concerto in E minor. Nevertheless, working with conductor Krzysztof Urbański, Hadelich won over his audience by demonstrating that even the most familiar compositions can allow for interpretations that were fresh and new without coming across as provocatively destructive.

His biographical statement in the program book explained that he had recently signed an exclusive recording contract with Warner Classics and that the first recording to be released under that contract would be the complete set of 24 caprices for solo violin that Niccolò Paganini published as his Opus 1. Here in San Francisco Hadelich offered a “sneak preview” of the recording by performing the 21st of those caprices as his post-concerto encore. Even without taking advance publicity into account, this could not have been a better selection, since Hadelich had just managed to bring a compelling sense of intimacy to his treatment of the cadenzas that Mendelssohn had written out (in full detail) for his violin concerto. Hadelich’s encore resonated with that same capacity for intimacy.

Warner will release its recording of Hadelich playing Opus 1 in its entirety this coming Friday. As usual, Amazon.com is processing pre-orders for those wishing be “first on the block” to experience Hadelich’s approach to the full set. While I have absolutely no skills at playing any bowed string instrument, I have had a long-standing interest in this collection, going all the way back to buying the Turnabout reissue of Ruggiero Ricci recording the complete Opus 1 set for Vox in 1975. I even made it a point to add the CD reissue of that recording on the alto label to my current collection.

Paganini clearly wanted to demonstrate that these caprices were more than just finger-busting challenges for a violinist wishing to establish his/her reputation. He wanted to appeal to the serious listener as much as to the ambitious performer. Thus, one can enjoy not only the technical challenges but also Paganini’s attention to matters of harmony, counterpoint, rhythm, and, in the final caprice, the diverse scope of variations on a theme. That latter element would have a major impact on composers who were not necessarily focused all the time on the violin, such as Johannes Brahms and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Nevertheless, I am not sure that this is the sort of album that allows for beginning-to-end listening. Hadelich’s CD lasts a little more than 80 minutes, and that is quite an interval of time during which to endure one display of virtuoso technique after another. As a listener I prefer to approach Opus 1 as a box of truly fine chocolates. Gobbling them all up as soon as you open the box is virtually an insult to the chocolatier. Much more is to be gained for savoring them one at a time, each distanced far enough from the others to avoid external influences.

Mind you, this album was the product of only nine days of recording sessions; so Hadelich himself was not quite as strong an advocate of distance as I have become! Nevertheless, each caprice is the well-crafted effort of a violin virtuoso who cares as much about listening as he does about technical execution. This is a must-listen recording that will probably appeal to those familiar with the selections as much as those just getting to know many (if not most) of them.