BUDGET CUTS CAN MEAN VANISHING MUSICIANS 
                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of May 18-25, 2009
                                                                  Vol. 11, No. 101
          BERKELEY---Belt-tightening is the order of the day in the arts. The economic crisis means that the notes are flying right off the page. Two weeks ago a symphony orchestra concert I attended had shrunk largely to a chamber-orchestra concert.
            And Kent Nagano’s chamber orchestra known as the Berkeley Akademie, played May 17, slimmed down largely to chamber music. If this trend continues much farther, eventually we may see Handel’s “Messiah” shrunk down to a solo-piano recital.
            Nagano however is supportive of the Akademie, coming back to lead it despite the colossal demands of his European job, as general music director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Germany---one of the choicest plums for opera conductors anywhere in the world. At this point however not even he can predict the Akademie’s future, nor  the finances of the umbrella organization, the Berkeley Symphony, whose podium is now yielded to the young Portuguese, Joana Carneiro, 32, beating out five other finalists in the two-year competition.  (She starts with the concert of Oct. 15.)
            The Akademie was further hobbled when the new piece by Tobias Schneid was not done in time, leaving the patrons at the First Congregational Church with the world premiere of an octet by another German, Alexander Muno, entitled “Masques and Divertissements.” It’s a restless, jagged little piece of brief statements and gestures, at times pointillistic, searching in vain for melodies, at times gravitating toward Alban Berg’s idiom. There’s a contrapuntal competition between two violins, and a challenging clarinet solo, plus some tremolos, all squeezed into nine minutes of agitation more than emotion.
            It was placed between enviable bookends---the D Major Divertimento, K. 136, penned by the genius Mozart at age 16, and the breezy and equally ingratiating Brahms Serenade No. 1 for chamber orchestra, here with all but five of the string instruments excised (according to management, a trimming decided on long before the current economic crisis). This made for ludicrous imbalances. And though Nagano conducted this with his characteristic aplomb, and all due attention to dynamics,  it gave us a masterful piece with its vital organ removed, specifically the heart. Neither Nagano nor his audience should have to be subjected to such spartan diets---better to stick to chamber music throughout, or perhaps no concert at all till next year. The performance was a mite helter-skelter, running rough-shod through the bucolic fields of Brahms, in this fetching rustic symphony starting off with a “bag-pipe” opening. The horn solos by veteran Stuart Gronningen (who had already been the principal of the highly esteemed Oakland Symphony before its demise a generation ago) were admirable throughout.
            The next and last Akademie concert under Nagano comes May 31 at the First Congregational, the summit being Ives’ Symphony No. 3---once again, with only five string instruments active. As they say, include me out!!
(Review updated 5/19/09.)
            BERKELEY AKADEMIE under Music Director Kent Nagano. First Congregational Church, Berkeley. Next: May 31. For info: (510) 841-2800, or go online. 


        ©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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