THE CRUCIBLE THAT IS BERKELEY---WITH MUSIC, TOO
                Unrest in Berkeley: Economic, Athletic, Musical  
                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of Nov. 20-27, 2009
                                                                  Vol. 12, No. 39
         BERKELEY---A world in foment, with multiple intersections.
             While the Cal students are massing, demonstrating bitterly against (for many) unbearable tuition rises and getting arrested for their trouble, others rally for the big football game.
            Meantime, there is a profoundly moving performance of Richard Strauss’ eloquent but unsettling World-War-Two discourse of tragedy, “Metamorphosen,” played a couple of blocks away by the New Century Chamber Orchestra at the First Congregational Church  Nov. 19.
            And somehow the three coming together are a microcosm of the world, with  unique relevance to the complex troughs and swells that are life, death, anguish and aspirations to a better tomorrow.
            This piece ranks with several others (by Britten, Berg, Shostakovich, Messiaen) among the great anti-war creations born out of the 1939-45 conflicts. From the opening cello chorale on a haunting six-note theme, we are given a 28-minute tone poem that evolves into perfectly stitched romantic counterpoint as performed by 23 solo string players. To call it  emotionally draining is an understatement. The work achieves ever greater intensity and agitation, with a transformation to a major key before reverting to the minor. This is luxurious music, unmistakably bearing finger-print  textures of, say, “Der Ronsekavalier” that Strauss had written more than three decades earlier, deliberately ignoring all the musical styles rising in the interim. Completing this threnody at age 80 is a spectacular achievement of Strauss’. And hardly less spectacular was the chamber orchestra playing it without a conductor, as is their wont.
            The New Century Chamber Orchestra brought this off quite gloriously under the guidance of violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, 48, who is less than two years into her tenure as artistic director. Though she loves all things Italian, her prowess at carrying off a German-French program attests to a definite versatility.
            OK, so William Bolcom is American, not French. But in his works taking up the first half, he has never sounded more Gallic. The fruits of his study with Darius Milhaud on both sides of the Atlantic, including at Oakland’s Mills College, and his exposure to the piquant textures of Poulenc and Frank Martin (Swiss-French) permeated the keystone work here: Bolcom’s (Nocturnal) Serenade No. 3 for oboe and string quartet. Oboist Laura Griffiths followed suit with a matching subdued sound in a demanding but not especially modern role. Highly disciplined, she had you wishing that she’d let herself go, with  a good bit more freedom.
            The piece is neoclassical, in the form that Mozart pursued in his Serenata Nocturna. Griffiths was joined by the four first-chair players of the NCCO, all women.
            Overall, the NCCO has long been a female-dominated ensemble, with only about 30 percent males in the complement. The San Jose Chamber Orchestra, which similarly has a female leader, boasts a comparable statistic; its conductor, Barbara Day Turner, found that few men auditioned for vacancies in the SJCO. We should watch to see whether the Berkeley Symphony heads in a similar direction, now that it has its first woman conductor, Joana Carneiro. The conclusion, apparently, is that while women will play for males on the podium, male musicians are less enthusiastic about appearing under female conductors.
            The concert had opened with Bolcom’s biggest hits---more so than his eight symphonies or four operas, or his massive set of Blake songs which won him four Grammies. The “Three Rags” are humorous, cheeky, ingratiating, capped by the slow drag of “Graceful Ghost.” There were growls, irreverent interruptions, and sassy pizzicatos, with the players having a ball. A marriage of rubato and rags. 
            Nadja & Co. brought great dynamic energy to both the rags and to “Metamorphosen.” Nadja appears to love her new dual role, and her interaction with the all-string players was exemplary. She has also wisely reined in her distracting excesses we encounter when she does concertos on tour (with other groups).
            “METAMORPHOSES” REVISITED---Strauss has been taken to task for writing the work to mourn the bombing of his beloved Hoftheater in Munich, suggesting he was unresponsive to the carnage, persecution and death camps going on around him. This social myopia might be explained because of his advanced age (80). Or, he realistically saw that in the repressive Nazi German  war, there was no room for protests of any ilk. And those that did protest however mildly, like the Scholl student siblings in Munich, were hanged for their efforts.
            New Century Chamber Orchestra, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, artistic director. Bolcom-Strauss program plays in four Bay Area cities through Nov. 22. For info: (415) 357-1111, 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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