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three concerts, at least
Jan. 19th, 2009 07:45 amBusily musical weekend.
1) Symphony Silicon Valley
Premiere of new piano concerto for Jon Nakamatsu by David Amram. Fairly nice piece, worth taking on tour, as Nakamatsu intends. No virtuoso displays; mostly just softly pounding chords. The three movements supposedly had disparate inspirations, but they all came out alike. First movement: mid-20C American nationalist. Second movement, a tribute to jazz and Latin music: little sign of either; mid-20C American nationalist with slightly less dissonance (not that the first movement was all that dissonant either). Third movement, inspired by Indian ragas: succeeded only in sounding vaguely Israeli.
The living persona of Paul Polivnick showed up to conduct, which was a relief. (He also has an undead persona, less artistically admirable.) Excellent rendition of Haydn's Symphony No. 95, bringing out the gracious wit in the most somber of late Haydn symphonies. Respighi's Feste Romane, a work that always leaves me feeling slightly brutalized (perhaps it's not a coincidence that most festivities in Roman streets at the time of its composition were carried out by Mussolini's thugs), was also a hit. Fine performances throughout the evening. Even Nakamatsu's page turner was a first-rate page turner.
2) Saratoga Symphony
Community orchestra that gives "donations requested" concerts in a local church with the damp, soggy acoustics of a Moscow recording studio. These go a long way to cover up the orchestra's deficiencies. The horns and brass are pretty good, but the winds sound like a flock of geese, and the strings cringe in terror at the first hint of anything fugal. Well, you get what you pay for. What you do get is a strong sense of overall shape and conception, for which I guess credit goes to the conductor, Jason Klein. He has the looks, voice, and manner of Richard Nixon, and conducts mostly one-handed, but he seems to know what he's doing.
Tone poem by Henry Mollicone, which ended so abruptly the audience didn't know to applaud. (Klein dropped his baton, whirled around, and barked, "Well? Didn't you like it?") Once-famous, now forgotten violin concerto by Karl Goldmark: soloist Eric Leong brought professional tone and seriousness of purpose, but no passion, to this long, lyrical work. Last, Glazunov's Suite From the Middle Ages, the one I came for, an unjustly neglected entry in the canon of big, colorful, exotic Romantic Russian suites. Gratifying to hear it live at last.
3) Poulenc Trio
Two Russians and a Washingtonian make up a trio of piano, oboe, and bassoon from Baltimore. Bassoon gets a little drowned out, but this was well more than an evening's supply of oboe. I wouldn't have thought I'd get tired of this combination of instruments, but ... I did. The players were technically excellent - the pianist looked as if she was about to fall over every time she stood up, but it didn't affect her playing - so maybe it was the repertoire, which was often charming but never beautiful. The best composition by far was the trio of Jean Françaix, especially the second movement, part of which sounded like the first movement played backwards.
I was very taken with a quote in the program book from the Trio's namesake, Francis Poulenc. He said: "Above all, a composer should not aim to be fashionable. If you are not fashionable today, you may not be unfashionable tomorrow." Whenever people in the science-fiction field declare the necessity of cutting edge fiction, I always say, "If you live by the cutting edge, you die by the cutting edge," but nobody ever seems to understand what I mean by that. This is what I mean by that. Merci, M. Poulenc.
But wait, there's more ...
1) Symphony Silicon Valley
Premiere of new piano concerto for Jon Nakamatsu by David Amram. Fairly nice piece, worth taking on tour, as Nakamatsu intends. No virtuoso displays; mostly just softly pounding chords. The three movements supposedly had disparate inspirations, but they all came out alike. First movement: mid-20C American nationalist. Second movement, a tribute to jazz and Latin music: little sign of either; mid-20C American nationalist with slightly less dissonance (not that the first movement was all that dissonant either). Third movement, inspired by Indian ragas: succeeded only in sounding vaguely Israeli.
The living persona of Paul Polivnick showed up to conduct, which was a relief. (He also has an undead persona, less artistically admirable.) Excellent rendition of Haydn's Symphony No. 95, bringing out the gracious wit in the most somber of late Haydn symphonies. Respighi's Feste Romane, a work that always leaves me feeling slightly brutalized (perhaps it's not a coincidence that most festivities in Roman streets at the time of its composition were carried out by Mussolini's thugs), was also a hit. Fine performances throughout the evening. Even Nakamatsu's page turner was a first-rate page turner.
2) Saratoga Symphony
Community orchestra that gives "donations requested" concerts in a local church with the damp, soggy acoustics of a Moscow recording studio. These go a long way to cover up the orchestra's deficiencies. The horns and brass are pretty good, but the winds sound like a flock of geese, and the strings cringe in terror at the first hint of anything fugal. Well, you get what you pay for. What you do get is a strong sense of overall shape and conception, for which I guess credit goes to the conductor, Jason Klein. He has the looks, voice, and manner of Richard Nixon, and conducts mostly one-handed, but he seems to know what he's doing.
Tone poem by Henry Mollicone, which ended so abruptly the audience didn't know to applaud. (Klein dropped his baton, whirled around, and barked, "Well? Didn't you like it?") Once-famous, now forgotten violin concerto by Karl Goldmark: soloist Eric Leong brought professional tone and seriousness of purpose, but no passion, to this long, lyrical work. Last, Glazunov's Suite From the Middle Ages, the one I came for, an unjustly neglected entry in the canon of big, colorful, exotic Romantic Russian suites. Gratifying to hear it live at last.
3) Poulenc Trio
Two Russians and a Washingtonian make up a trio of piano, oboe, and bassoon from Baltimore. Bassoon gets a little drowned out, but this was well more than an evening's supply of oboe. I wouldn't have thought I'd get tired of this combination of instruments, but ... I did. The players were technically excellent - the pianist looked as if she was about to fall over every time she stood up, but it didn't affect her playing - so maybe it was the repertoire, which was often charming but never beautiful. The best composition by far was the trio of Jean Françaix, especially the second movement, part of which sounded like the first movement played backwards.
I was very taken with a quote in the program book from the Trio's namesake, Francis Poulenc. He said: "Above all, a composer should not aim to be fashionable. If you are not fashionable today, you may not be unfashionable tomorrow." Whenever people in the science-fiction field declare the necessity of cutting edge fiction, I always say, "If you live by the cutting edge, you die by the cutting edge," but nobody ever seems to understand what I mean by that. This is what I mean by that. Merci, M. Poulenc.
But wait, there's more ...
