ON THE PODIUM, LEADING IS A RIGHT
                And Sometimes a Left and a Right and a Leap 
                                              By D. Rane Danubian
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of April 2, 2010
                                                                  Vol. 12, No. 85
            BERKELEY---How much motion should a conductor on the symphony podium indulge in? The question arose with the amazing gesticulation and body English by the music director leading the Berkeley Symphony.
            In the medium, possibilities abound. At one extreme, we have the Leonard Bernstein school of conducting, with such enthusiasm that Bernstein literally leapt off the ground in mid-passage. At the other extreme came Pierre Monteux, who could lead the wildest music imaginable with barely a quiver of a baton.
            Currently in her first year as music director here after winning the job over formidable competition, Joana Carneiro leans toward the Bernsteinian max and then some. Even in the opening measures of Brahms’ Symphony No. 1, which is melancholy-to-tragic but certainly not tumultuous, she makes huge gestures with immense overhead sweep of arms and baton, and body movements both abrupt and angular, with flying hair. These match neither the music nor the mood. She does these at shoulder-height or above, in the manner of opera conductors in the pit who may be hard to see from the stage (e.g., Thomas Beecham, who was further handicapped by his limited body size), and in the process exaggerates the effect further.
            Carneiro’s disadvantage is the audience reaction, giving the impression that she is anxious to get a lot more emotion out of the orchestra than the musicians are producing. And that does not make the musicians look good at all.
            There are 1,001 ways to lead an orchestra. But any visible movements letting us think that the musicians are underperforming are ultimately divisive.
            She led an attractive enough interpretation of the Brahms; clearly, all the requisite dialogues had been carried out in rehearsal at Zellerbach Hall. And the slow movement was particularly refined in the April 1 concert, with fetching solos on oboe (Deborah Shidler), horn (Stuart Gronningen) and violin (Concertmaster Franklyn D’Antonio).
            The essence of the Berkeley Symphony however is in playing living composers. This time it was the German Jörg Widmann, 36, via his US-premiere piece, “Con brio.” If, as we were informed, the thrust of the piece was humor, it misfired badly. A reflection on---and deconstruction of---Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 7 and 8, it focuses on strange sounds made with conventional instruments, full of scrapes, rattles, and spasmodic blows and ragged entries. There is whistling into a flute, and the effect of a bouncing billiard ball on a plank, all of it as if the orchestra had lost its grip and gone mad. It made for a chaotic 11 minutes, leaving the crowd bewildered.
            One of Samuel Barber’s most popular slices of nostalgia, “Koxville, Summer of 1915,” brought forth soprano Jessica Rivera to sing sentimental texts. Her voice is best above the staff, clear and lyrical, but not strong enough in the lower octave to combat Zellerbach’s acoustics. She also set a standards of sorts in unintelligibility: Even with the text before me, I was unable to locate where exactly she was at any given point. But since many a fine operatic career has been carved out by incomprehensible singers, perhaps Rivera is well on her way.
            The orchestra may not be the best in the West, but it is solid, and responsive to the new thirtysomething music director. She managed some diminuendos with a lingering beauty in her concert. Adding to the impact, the Portuguese conductor showed an appealing personality in her comments introducing the concert.
            Berkeley Symphony at Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley, April 1, Joana Carneiro, music director. Next: May 20 Akademie concert. For info: (510) 841-2800, or go online. 

        ©D. Rane Danubian 2010
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        D. Rane Danubian has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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