concert review: San Francisco Symphony
Feb. 19th, 2009 07:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacSofia Gubaidulina, 77 years old and the most senior of distinguished living women composers, her round face reflecting her Tatar ancestry, leaned forward in her chair and stared in an intense birdlike way at the interviewer posing wordy, vapid questions in a language the listener knows little of, then waited as the self-effacing translator (Laurel Fay, actually one of the most formidable American scholars of modern Russian music) rendered them into Russian, then replied in the same language for Fay to make English of it.
They were talking about Gubaidulina's The Light of the End, a recent orchestral composition that the SFS then performed under Kurt Masur. This is, the composer explained, a work about the conflict between the pure tones of just intonation, represented by the French horns, and the modern compromised system of equal temperament, represented by, I guess, the rest of the orchestra. The moments when the horns went on their way against other instruments produced an intense sub-intervalic dissonance very different from the boring old chromatic dissonances of your average modern composer. It had an almost spiritually cleansing effect, especially as it was used as punctuation, not a steady diet, and the whole thing was resolved into pure consonance at the conclusion, the "light of the end" of her title.
But that's Gubaidulina for you. Much of her music has a hushed, expectant quality. This piece was louder and more forceful than others of her works I know, but it played on that expectancy. And her mastery of the orchestra and capability for creating a distinctive voice were strongly evident. I "get" Gubaidulina in a sense that I don't get Carter, Dutilleux, or Kirchner (three living male composers older than she, all of whom I've suffered through in concert).
Gubaidulina expressed satisfaction that the light of her hard-won conclusion would be followed by Bruckner's Fourth Symphony, which she described as what comes afterwards when you get there. It was a peculiar performance, but then I've always found Masur a peculiar conductor. The tonal quality was fine, and the shape was cohesive. But the opening French horn theme had the expressiveness of a car horn, and the work's mighty conclusion had all the firmness of a damp rag. Much of the performance was like that, but not all. Things would suddenly come to life for a moment - one second-violin passage was thrown out with a vehemence the likes of which I'd never heard - but then die out again.
But Bruckner is still Bruckner, and my traveling companion, who knows little of his music, was very impressed. I realized in the course of our conversation that what Masur was aiming for was a contemplative rather than a grand performance, and I guess he got it.
They were talking about Gubaidulina's The Light of the End, a recent orchestral composition that the SFS then performed under Kurt Masur. This is, the composer explained, a work about the conflict between the pure tones of just intonation, represented by the French horns, and the modern compromised system of equal temperament, represented by, I guess, the rest of the orchestra. The moments when the horns went on their way against other instruments produced an intense sub-intervalic dissonance very different from the boring old chromatic dissonances of your average modern composer. It had an almost spiritually cleansing effect, especially as it was used as punctuation, not a steady diet, and the whole thing was resolved into pure consonance at the conclusion, the "light of the end" of her title.
But that's Gubaidulina for you. Much of her music has a hushed, expectant quality. This piece was louder and more forceful than others of her works I know, but it played on that expectancy. And her mastery of the orchestra and capability for creating a distinctive voice were strongly evident. I "get" Gubaidulina in a sense that I don't get Carter, Dutilleux, or Kirchner (three living male composers older than she, all of whom I've suffered through in concert).
Gubaidulina expressed satisfaction that the light of her hard-won conclusion would be followed by Bruckner's Fourth Symphony, which she described as what comes afterwards when you get there. It was a peculiar performance, but then I've always found Masur a peculiar conductor. The tonal quality was fine, and the shape was cohesive. But the opening French horn theme had the expressiveness of a car horn, and the work's mighty conclusion had all the firmness of a damp rag. Much of the performance was like that, but not all. Things would suddenly come to life for a moment - one second-violin passage was thrown out with a vehemence the likes of which I'd never heard - but then die out again.
But Bruckner is still Bruckner, and my traveling companion, who knows little of his music, was very impressed. I realized in the course of our conversation that what Masur was aiming for was a contemplative rather than a grand performance, and I guess he got it.
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 04:24 pm (UTC)http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/08/21/060821fa_fact_davidson?currentPage=5
The way Maazel and others describe his approach to conducting matches what I aspire to do at the podium. But the description of Masur captures something that a very different world:
Life with Masur was stressful partly because he saw his role in New York as that of a spiritual leader, harnessing the mystical side of his profession. This came out at disconcerting moments. Dicterow told me that, early in Masur’s relationship with the orchestra, he conducted the beginning of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony simply by flinging out his arms, as if he were a munificent potentate hurling doubloons. The piece’s first phrase is murderously difficult, because it starts with a rest (it’s not DA-da-da-DUM but GASP-da-da-da-DUM), and because the pulse and the tension have to be established immediately. Dicterow approached Masur during a break and asked if the maestro might mark an extra beat, so the orchestra could figure out when to come in. Masur refused, insisting that the pulse would materialize on its own. “You must believe!” he pronounced. Astonishingly, Dicterow said, the gambit worked: Masur shot his arms out again, and the orchestra, ready and on edge, exploded.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 11:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 11:02 pm (UTC)