HEARING MODERN ART AT THE SYMPHONY
                                              By D. Rane Danubian
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of Feb. 26-March 4,  2011
                                                                  Vol. 13, No. 71
            Silence and near-silence reigned at the San Francisco Symphony in a highly sensitive rendition of Morton Feldman’s “Rothko Chapel” (1971).
            It is the second quietest piece you’ll encounter in concert repertory (after John Cage’s “4’33”,” which is totally silent). This is a magnificent string of sonic pearls floating forth at a pianissimo level running about a half-hour, where you listen eagerly for each packet of softness to emerge, like whispers from an oracle divining arcane truths.
            Though mesmerizing, it’s rarely played, as the mood and music are inextricably tied to the art work and site of the intimate, modern, multi-faith chapel in Houston. The chapel is of course not transportable; but the SFS audiences would have profited from adding overhead  projections showing the set of large black-on-nearly-black abstract Rothko paintings, which the painter did not live to see installed.
            Another reason this Feldman work  should not be performed, at least not in mid-winter: It sets off cascades of disruptive coughs throughout the hall along with, at the Feb. 24 matinee, one very offensive cell-phone ring tone. Out!!!
            Feldman’s masterpiece of a miniature invites the visitor to come and hear modern art. It is also a prime example of spatial music. The viola soloist (Jonathan Vinocour) played in slow sustained tones at five different locations, while the three other instrumentalists were sitting widely separated, and the humming SFS Chorus was divided antiphonally. Mezzo soloist Sara Cooke meanwhile delivered the wordless song from the highest terrace seats, with an angel’s view. Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas’ interpretation could only be termed exquisite, refined.
            The Mozart Requiem remains one of the reigning incomplete achievements of Western civilization, blending high musical invention with the pathos of the composer’s death after writing the second line of the Lacrymosa (Lamentable is that day, etc.), at the end of a step-by-step climb going up more than an octave. The work looks to the future while harking back to the baroque stylistically, resonating with fugues and fervent outpourings of faith---all coming surprisingly from a Doubting-Thomas composer who never completed any of his major sacred works. The piece is often faulted for its “completion” by Mozart’s associate, F.X. Süssmayr. He was a far lesser talent, yet his rendition of the soulful Benedictus (best played slowly and lovingly, unlike Tilson Thomas’ brisk version) for the four vocal soloists compares well with Mozart’s own output. 
            If only the glorious 100-voice SFS Chorus would learn to enunciate! Of course, with any group so large, enunciation is a problem. But any number of our church choirs can do that better. A more Mozart-sized chorus would clearly have been preferable.  As for the four soloists, they were not nearly up to the level of the collaborators.
            What the SFS Chorus does do better is pitch, expressiveness and agility in negotiating those tricky fugues. The orchestra itself, equipped with two rarely heard basset horns in place of clarinets, rose to the occasion, with Principal Timothy Higgins playing that difficult, exposed trombone solo in the “Tuba Mirum.” Discussing the raising of the dead in the Last Judgment, such sections  in Germanic countries feature one or more trombones, while in the English translations of the Bible, it’s the trumpets that will sound. A quandary for any international composer!
            The concert opened with a brief but derivative “Lacrymosa” by Mindaugas Urbaitis, 58,  for a cappella chorus. It was refreshing however to hear some bona-fide Lithuanian music, since normally we only encounter it second-hand, via a wedding song-book of that Baltic nation acquired by Igor Stravinsky and generously borrowed for at least five themes used in his own epic “Rite of Spring.”
            These San Francisco Symphony concerts continue through Feb. 26 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.

          ©D. Rane Danubian 2011
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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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