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Month: October 2015

DAZZLING RHYTHMIC INTRICACIES

DAZZLING RHYTHMIC INTRICACIES

Cheng-Ades’ Two-Piano Tour de Force One of the masters of modern rhythmic complexity, Thomas Adès, paired up with Gloria Cheng for a 20th-century two-piano recital that still has my ears ringing. Their percussive repertory, delivered with muscular dispatch, offered more than 100,000 notes that may still be resonating through the facility, leading me to marvel at the dynamic pair’s sheer immunity to fatigue. None of their music is easy to play, or even to listen to. But the tour de…

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THAT FORMIDABLE MOZART CLARINET QUINTET

THAT FORMIDABLE MOZART CLARINET QUINTET

Dali Quartet Linked with Virtuoso Ricardo Morales SAN JOSE—Most orchestras have a No. Two conductor/consultant. Chamber groups have no such luck. The orchestra can send the #2 around during rehearsals, hear from the audience side, and judge whether all the balances between sections are good. The Dalí String Quartet from Philadelphia could use a similar sonic consultant to get optimum outcomes. They played a novel program here Oct. 25, pairing up with a stellar clarinetist, Ricardo Morales, principal in the…

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THE MAESTRA’S A NATURAL FOR SIBELIUS

THE MAESTRA’S A NATURAL FOR SIBELIUS

I was about to write off the S.F. Symphony concerts this week until the guest maestra led a gorgeous and profound Sibelius Symphony No. 5 for a finale. The Fifth is a majestic century-old masterwork, full of the Finnish neoromantic’s distinctive Nordic coloration, achieved with instruments playing with enigmatic emotion in their lower register, festooned with somber French horns and soft timpani rolls. The podium guest was the glamorous young Susanna Mälkki (pronounced MELL-key), sending the music soaring heavenward with…

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MY LAI WAR DISASTER DRAMATIZED

MY LAI WAR DISASTER DRAMATIZED

Berger Monodrama Tears at Complacency STANFORD—Jonathan Berger’s new operatic monodrama “My Lai Lullaby” is a searing cry in the wilderness over one of the darkest incidents of the lamentable Vietnam War. I wish it could have been unveiled 40 years ago, when the war, its unprecedented protests, and the bringing down of Richard Nixon were still a deeply divisive force punching in America’s face and boring holes in our skulls. Berger’s ingenious creation calls on the blending of string quartet…

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POPULIST FOCUS AT S.F. SYMPHONY

POPULIST FOCUS AT S.F. SYMPHONY

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Dispelling the Starch With the fluff and frills of the Gala opener out of the way, the San Francisco Symphony got down to business this week with a new work, and an East Coast conductor assisting the recuperating Michael Tilson Thomas on the podium. Clearly, both the SFS and the SFOpera had made an unaccustomed push toward new audiences via some Broadway programming—the opera actually opening the season in unprecedented fashion with the show “Sweeney Todd” instead of an opera….

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SYMPHONIC TRANSFORMATIONS IN OAKLAND

SYMPHONIC TRANSFORMATIONS IN OAKLAND

Polarities of Bates, Tchaikovsky OAKLAND—With a new name, new concertmaster and a couple of fast-rising artists, the orchestra under Michael Morgan made a splash opening its 28th season. This was the Oakland East Bay Symphony, the name now streamlined to Oakland Symphony, thus drawing a line all the way back to the latter’s inaugural back in 1933. That brings to mind the great era in the 1960s when the upstart and progressive O.S. stole the thunder from that far-better-heeled orchestra…

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