A LIVING COMPOSER INTERPRETS A MURDERING COMPOSER
Preceding a
Bona-Fide Concerto Fire-Eater
By Paul Hertelendy
artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music
and dance
Week of Oct. 8-15, 2009
Vol. 12, No. 23
An ethereal fantasy piece composed by the Aussie
Brett Dean
opened the S.F. Symphony concerts this week swathed in a sonic mist to
intrigue
the listener.
Dean’s
21-minute “Carlo” is a none too flattering
portrait of a piece of theatrical
music woven around the most notorious murderer in music history, the 16th-century
Italian composer Carlo Gesualdo. The most innovative of all the
pre-Monteverdi
composers, Gesualdo had murdered both his wife and her lover and got
away with
it, spending the rest of his life writing stunning madrigals both
sacred (!)
and secular.
The Dean
invention was hardly less stunning, hardly less
innovative. The small string orchestra
of some 15 distinct parts was in tandem with prerecorded tracks of
Gesualdo’s
vocal music, sounding like voices from beyond, perhaps of the "murder
victims" themselves. Dean, who turns 48 later this month, may be a dead
ringer for Paul
Hindemith seen up close, but he writes instead in
a
misty post-Debussy style, adding controlled aleatoric elements to the
strings
as well as a sampler/synthesizer track, rendered here by technician
Peter Grunberg, a
musical assistant to Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas.
The subtlety
of swathing mists dissipate toward the end of
the music with ever greater horror and intensity, the wailings and
outcries apparently
depicting the horror of the Gesualdo murders. I was fascinated with
Dean’s
inventiveness which would be perfect for a film score, but must admit
one
patron came up to me vociferously complaining about the modernism of
the opus.
The rest was
back on safe and tried symphonic ground:
Haydn's "Surprise” Symphony (No. 94) and Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto.
Attendance at 2009 symphony concerts has been nothing to write home
about
(including at the SFS), but it’s made up for in the sheer audience
enthusiasm. Yefim
Bronfman’s tireless dynamism in the concerto enkindled the audience to
several ovations
as he worked what may be the most finger-wrenching, forceful, and rapid
Niagara of notes in all the 19th-century
concerto repertoire.
A bona-fide fire-eater like
Bronfman launches into these thickets of
tight-packed chords with evident relish and polish. The opening French
horn
solo was done by the new associate principal, petite Nicole Cash, while
the Andante’s
cello solo was by associate Peter Wyrick, both acting in lieu of
principals
otherwise occupied.
The concert
was led by David Robertson of the St. Louis
Symphony, a regular podium guest in these parts. In the Oct. 7 concert
Robertson’s
interpretations were marked by solid professionalism, but little
inspiration that
might make the music take off into the high blue yonder. For these
ears, the
Dean performance was the highlight of
the evening at Davies Hall, that critical patron notwithstanding.
The Haydn
“Surprise” Symphony---his best-known---is so named
because of an unexpected crashing chord in the Andante movement,
apparently
inserted to awaken his patrons nodding
off after a high-caloric late-18th-century dinner with beverages to match. But Haydn as usual
offered multiple surprises, like the nebulous tonality of the
introduction, and
the rambunctious peasant dance instead of the anticipated demure
minuet. Haydn was
no predictable powdered-wig effete---he was bursting with musical ideas unmatched by other composer
contemporaries. And his 104 numbered symphonies offer an astounding
array of both
diversity and sheer numbers, setting the standard and foundation stone
for
centuries of symphonies yet to be written.
These
San Francisco Symphony concerts continue through Oct. 10 at 8 p.m. For
info: (415) 864-6000, or go online.
Broadcasts on KDFC-FM (102.1) at 8 p.m. on the second Tuesday following.
©Paul Hertelendy 2009
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Paul Hertelendy 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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