BRUCKNER AND SOFIA G.--THE OLD WITH THE NEW 
                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of Feb. 19, 2009
                                                                  Vol. 11, No. 67
          Ecstasy is the only word for Masur’s Bruckner.
            His performance of the popular Fourth Symphony (“Romantic”) with the S.F. Symphony Feb. 18 was as if we’d never heard it before. And his slow movement was to die for, so inspiring, so lyrical, so celestial. Even the violas were stellar. <> 
            You’ve heard orchestras where violas growl at you, if heard at all? Kurt Masur had them “singing,” lyrical to the core, as if ready to compete with the violins for top billing.  
            You’ve also heard orchestras, no doubt, where the big, loud brass chorales get all the attention, like islands in the ocean, and the rest treated as fillers---choppy seas necessary to get to the next atoll. 
            For Masur, fillers don’t exist. They are serene moments that float over you delectably. The opening is dulcet, leading up to a favorite Bruckner device: A 4/4 measure in which, each time, the second half consists of a triplet rhythm, shifting gears every time. And he gets this going with irresistible momentum, like a Danube riverboat churning away atop a following current.
            In the last movement, he brings on a mystical sotto voce of the cellos, and then the intoxicating, spare-no-horses finale.  
            Though not Austrian, guest conductor Kurt Masur is a great apostle of the Bruckner canon, conducting from memory. But he is now already 81, and health can intrude on his popular  West Coast forays. Without interpreters of that caliber, the Bruckner revival may be running its course after a half century. It had been “discovered” belatedly in the U.S. from N.Y. Philharmonic playings by Bruno Walter and Leonard Bernstein (concurrent with Mahler coming out in halls and on disc). But the tepid audience response to a great performance Feb. 18 suggests that audiences are now looking elsewhere.
            Admittedly, Bruckner has his flaws---a lot of repetition, and obvious shifts in the orchestration as only an organist of Bruckner’s stamp, accustomed to pulling out stop next to his keyboards,  could fully understand. But he has a mystical quality, as if he expects all the heavens to open up before us in one of his finales. And there’s a charm in his turning away from grand statements to provide distraction via a little waltz or episode.
            You have trouble meeting deadlines? Meet your partner in crime, the Russian-German composer Sofia Gubaidulina, 77, who had to substitute another of her recent works when she could not complete her SFS commission on time. But what she brought---“The Light at the End" (2003)---was a marvel. She offers a 23-minute mystical voyage full of uncertainty, vacillating between the very old "natural tuning" and our equal-temperament system (a tonal variation so small, most listeners will miss it entirely).
            She also uses extremes----the highest and lowest notes of an instrument, and the softest and loudest decibel levels. It’s as if other composers stick cautiously to the middle of a continent, while Gubaidulina the adventurous colorist  ranges coast-to-coast. She’s not big on melody, but big on texture and timbre.
            Many of the effects fall nicely on the ears---that up-and-down whoosh of strings, like whirlwinds; the dominance of percussion, particularly on vibraphone and xylophone; a nice cello solo (Michael Grebanier); and some sudden abrasive brass, like the spiritual intrusion of a clashing culture. And just when I thought I heard bits of Wagner’s “Rheingold” in the brass, she comes back with church bells, like a message of both triumph and consolation ringing in from a Moscow cathedral.
            Ms. Gubaidulina (pronounced Goo-BUY-Do-Lina) is devout Russian Orthodox. Seeing her thematic-orchestral experimentation and what could be allusions to religious faith, it is little wonder that the “social realism” commissars of rigidity did not suffer her gladly, and she emigrated from the USSR first chance she got.
            The tiny and seemingly shy composer who had studied with Shostakovich came out on stage to take a bow. Two opportunities remain to hear her output after this run: The week of Feb. 26 with her violin concerto, and then next season, when presumably her world premiere will finally see the light of day. Both with the SFS.
            These San Francisco Symphony concerts continue through Feb. 21 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.

        ©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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