STRUGGLING WITH BERG'S ATONALITY AT THE SFS 
                                              By D. Rane Danubian
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of June  6-13, 2009
                                                                  Vol. 11, No. 110
          Michael Tilson Thomas is a fearless man. He programmed the knottiest of Alban Berg’s tone-row creations, the 38-minute Chamber Concerto---84 years old, but still much more modern and unsettling in sound than what we encounter in today’s music.  He rehearsed it meticulously, annotated it very wittily with musical examples, and playing it with verve. Only to encounter the predictable result: Intermission chatter at Davies Hall about “this impossible music,” “this dreadful exercise,” and other heapings of scorn.
            Despite his penchant for dissonance, Berg (1885-1935) composed a lot of accessible music, particularly in his two passionate opera-tragedies. But here he was at his most doctrinaire and dense, delving whole-heartedly into the forbidding world of 12-tone music, with just over a dozen wind players plus a pair of  imported piano and violin soloists, neither one of whom had a huge part to play---not exactly an orchestra. The Chamber Concerto is best known as a visual game for those studying the score, with themes and notes incorporating parts of the names of Berg, his teacher Arnold Schoenberg and colleague Anton Webern---the Big Three of the Second Vienna School.
            In the bigger picture, the mature, modern  Berg offers a musical pendulum between the classical-contrapuntal (as here) and his post-romanticism (as in the operas). And the crowd at the S.F. Symphony June 6 made no secret of preferring the latter to the former. 
            Preferable alternatives would have been other Berg works: the accessible “Lyric Suite” of 1926, which had been under consideration earlier on, or some orchestral excerpts of “Wozzeck.”
            MTT was seemingly forgiven for his ebullient Schubert Great C Major Symphony (usually titled No. 9) that followed the chamber concerto, if ovations are any indication. But the whole affair fleshed out an important issue: Just how far should a major orchestra go in presenting the most challenging, most ear-disturbing sounds, especially of such considerable length? Is all music by great or very good composers suitable for the symphony hall? The SFS audiences are more patient than  most---I’ve heard boos for distasteful or experimental music in some other sites, along with mass audience exodus when the moderns strike. But how  far can one go in programming? And why, exactly?
            Soloists for the Berg were the ever-reliable but underutilized Yefim Bronfman and Julia Fischer. The Schubert capping the evening was played with feeling, but no great degree of articulation. And in conducting, MTT provided one of the most elaborate podium dances yet---kneeling, bending, evoking---including one gesture I never deciphered: Butterfly movements of the fingers next to the ears. I’m earnestly hoping that a few in the orchestra understood it and performed with the appropriate phrasing or gesture.
          SCHUBERT EVOLUTION---The C Major Symphony was the longest and arguable the most thematically elaborate symphony up to that time, with the exception of Beethoven's Ninth. What is remarkable about this masterpiece is that Schubert never heard it in concert, nor any of his other late symphonies---no chance to edit, correct, balance. Schubert was showered with neglect: This one was not premiered until 13 years after his death. Even then, some musicians balked at playing the repetitive filigree of the violins in the finale which give the movement a unique gallop impetus.
        These San Francisco Symphony concerts continue through Dec. 3 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 2009
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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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