IN THE CONCERT HALL, US-RUSSIAN RELATIONS ARE AT PEACE
                         With Cool, Wan Coole Swans
                                                  By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of Feb. 20-27, 2010
                                                                  Vol. 12, No. 68
            BERKELEY---A battle of words erupted at high levels this week as the two nations disputed whether the American or the Russian most merited the men’s figure-skating gold in the Olympics this week. Vladimir Putin even gave the world  a piece of his mind on the subject.
            But on the musical front, relations could hardly be better. The Russian National Orchestra came over, engaging an American violin virtuoso and vocalists, and its composer-conductor presented his own world premiere featuring poems in English by Yeats. And they reaped standing ovations at Zellerbach Hall, which resulted in encores.
            Then there’s the Renaissance man syndrome. Russia has sent us three Mikhail Pletnevs: Pletnev the pianist, winner of the Tchaikovsky Competition gold in 1978; Pletnev the conductor, founder of this very first post-Soviet Russian orchestra; and Pletnev the 51-year-old composer.
            On stage with baton he exudes a self-effacing demeanor with a minimum of arm-waving,  deflecting all ovations repeatedly toward his colleagues.
            The Feb. 19 concert opened with Pletnev’s “Yeats Song Cycle,” three contrasting pieces for lyric soprano, chorus and orchestra. The yeast in Yeats seems to grow in Pletnev’s mind; after writing the subtle love song “When You Are Old,” years later Pletnev added the tempestuous “Shadowy Horses” and the cool wan “Wild Swans at Coole.” Pletnev confines the orchestra to sparse yet effective touches, bringing to bear a conventional ensemble (apart from a synthesizer buried in the percussion section).
            The shadowy horses with all their fiery hooves and tone-painting effects could have emerged from the hyperromantic Mahler workshop. But on balance, the 19-minute piece was touching, not imitative. The elite local chorus Volti, swelled from the usual 20 to about 50, sang it with clarity and precision. The lyric soprano soloist was Lisa Delan, whose delicate, expressive tones would have profited from a more intimate hall than Zellerbach, which didn’t even have an acoustic shell on stage to help the sound.
            For most of the audience, the star of the night was the violin virtuoso of German and Korean descent, Stefan Jakiw. The former Harvard student with the slender frame of a figure-skater boasts an androgynous look. But there’s nothing delicate about his play when he launches into a virtuosic, highly romantic run in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, a staple of Russian tour repertoire. With eyes closed, he dodged, he feinted, he powered into his play, counting on Pletnev to keep pace with him. He projected a powerful sound throughout a hall rarely cited for powerful sound. It was as sensitive as it was pulse-quickening, and idiomatic too.  The finale was an exercise in sheer velocity; the first movement merely got him a standing ovation---a mid-concerto tribute I can’t recall having heard before, anywhere.
            The finale was Shostakovich’s 1945 Symphony No. 9. It’s somewhere between a scherzo and a bagatelle, flitting in carefree fashion, dance-like, through five movements. It was denounced by Soviet officialdom as “ideologically weak,” as they awaited a Stalinstic paean to Soviet might suggesting that it had won World War Two single-handedly, or something even better (!). This led eventually to denunciation of Shostakovich three years later.
            We now know that Shostakovich secretly harbored great reservations about Stalin's regime across town in Moscow, and the only way he could let it out, especially in later life, was through clues in music. From that modern point of view, I read this symphony as full of irony and satire, directed against the pompous overlords and their oppressive regimentation of all facets of life. At the very least, he was standing aloof from the official Soviet lines that he refused to toe.
            Pletnev is a composer of minimal cues and gestures, doing little more than beating time. But he works hard in rehearsal, as he has produced here a first-class orchestra, with excellent soloists, particularly in the woodwinds. Of note too is that the oboists now all produce the international sound, as contrasted to the wailing quality in vogue in Soviet days (A similar transition occurred among the Russian operatic sopranos, who surely heard many Western recordings, and began to do guest stints all over Europe and America.)
            By way of encores, the RNO played, rather stiffly, excerpts of Pletnev's "JaZZ Suite," and Jakiw played unaccompanied Bach. 
            Cal Performances, with varied touring attractions, including the Russian National Orchestra at Zellerbach Hall Feb. 19. For info: (510) 642-9988, or go online. 

        ©Paul Hertelendy 2010
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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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