Not Enough of a Good Thing

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A fairly standard lineup: Wagner, Bach, Mendelssohn, and a new work having its first West Coast performance. A predictable response: moderate applause for the Wagner, a loyal standing ovation for the concertmaster soloist in the Bach, an enthusiastic reception for the Mendelssohn — and a tepid “So what?” for the new piece. And a systemic shame: The new work, a great work, a work that should have a chance to sneak up and possess its listeners, is left in the dust due to insufficient exposure.

No wonder the composer of the new, George Tsontakis, wasn’t at last Saturday’s Santa Rosa Symphony concert. As he revealed in a recent interview on Minnesota Public Radio, he’s given up caring.

The concert world is wonderful in a way. But what you do is you have a performance. There are 700 people there, 1,500 people. Many of them came to hear Beethoven, Tchaikovsky. It’s, to me, a surrogate audience. And I’m almost like a little bit shy to sit in the audience when that’s not what they really want. It’s like I’m a token modern composer. So, I don’t get a great feeling about that.

I don’t care if they’re playing the work live. It’s wonderful to have live interpretations, but my main criteria are to write the piece and have it recorded, [so that people] can sit at home and play it many times. I happen to be a composer that, usually, only a fraction is absorbed the first time. That’s the way I write. … My music is more poetry than it is a narrative. … Poetry you need to read many times.

If only Music Director Bruno Ferrandis, like Michael Tilson Thomas or Marin Alsop do down south, had given a one-minute talk on what to expect with the music for those who couldn’t arrive an hour earlier for the preconcert lecture (he did do this on Sunday, I learned subsequently); or, even better, if he had taken the rare and risky path of playing all or some of the music more than once. Then, and maybe only then, some in the audience might have caught one or more of the tantalizing earwormlets that pervade the music, and appreciated Tsontakis’ homage to Debussy. But more on this later.

Lost in the Woods

The concert began with “Forest Murmurs,” an orchestral extract from Wagner’s third Ring opera, Siegfried. This is a tough curtain raiser. It is the most cheerful and delicate, and least flamboyant, of all Wagner’s concert music. The music requires great sensitivity of interpretation, an acumen Ferrandis was able to project in spades with careful attention to fluctuations of tempo and dynamics. But it also requires virtuoso players. The light orchestration and pitch placement within instrumental ranges leaves many orchestra members fatally exposed, should anything slip or should tone production not be of the highest quality.

Suffice it to say the orchestra did not always meet the performance challenges. And what gratitude could it get if it did? There are no audience heart-accelerators like “Ride of the Valkyries” in the music. It’s a reflection on the joys of nature and the mysteries of the woodbird (whose tune on flute, doubled in the glockenspiel, was unfortunately played out of sync). The piece, if performed at all, might better have followed something more lively, like a Rossini overture, or more grandiose, like Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man.

Next came Bach’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in E Major, played by the orchestra’s concertmaster, Joseph Edelberg. The man has had thorough experience with the style, having performed many years with the American Bach Soloists and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. Edelberg seemed to favor the less romantic approach, despite the soulfulness of the second movement, minimizing vibrato and untoward emotion. I’m sure this is an honored method in many quarters. However, the stricter the style, the better should be the clarity and intonation — not strong points on Saturday.

Redeemed on the Moon

After intermission came Tsontakis’ Clair de Lune — not the Debussy version, but his own. Tsontakis wrote it for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra less than a year ago, out of fondness for the French pioneer’s music and love for the sound of the title. There are two movements lasting together about 20 minutes, “Moonlit” and “Mischievous–Lullaby,” the latter formerly called “Jeux [Games]–Ballet Moon (Pas de Deux).”

The first movement is both a direct and an implied homage to Debussy, though not to his famous piano piece of the title but rather to Voiles (Sails; also “veils” or “mists”), No. 2 of his Preludes, Book I (1910). Themes from the prelude are quoted, but more commonly are deconstructed into fragmentary tunes of four to six notes that repeat themselves on varying pitches like not unpleasant advertising jingles. Toward the end of the movement, a three-note clip from the prelude is expanded into the implied homage, a series of ascending whole-tone scales (a favorite device of Debussy’s) consisting of nine or more notes. The two possible versions of these scales emerge alternately from mysterious bass chords, like vaporous exhalations.

The second movement moves forward in time in terms of homage, with ecstatic triads reminiscent of Olivier Messiaen, and jazzy, even bang-on-a-can-like elements of the New York School. The central Lullaby features an accompaniment-sounding series of alternating notes, but it becomes clear that these are far more important than anything they accompany. The notes span an interval of a third, sometimes a second, but by dropping down or raising one of the notes a half step, the sound morphs from major to minor thirds (or the reverse) on chromatically neighboring roots, generating what I can only describe as a “drooping eyelid” effect one experiences prior to hypnosis. Just before the listener falls into a trance, however, the “mischievous” music returns and ends the piece.

Ferrandis and his orchestra did a wonderful job of bringing this fascinating music to life. A lot of hard work went into practice and rehearsal, and it showed, even if the audience didn’t seem to appreciate it. Following on Tsontakis’ preference for repeated listenings, I would venture that the next time Clair de Lune is performed, the conductor might ask the composer’s permission to play the first movement twice to see whether an audience’s appetite for this subtle but eventually tantalizing music can be whetted. The program notes can then inform listeners that a CD is available to hear the second movement, and both movements over and over, to the heart’s content.

The concert closed with the ever-favorite Fourth Symphony of Mendelssohn, played to everyone’s great satisfaction, including my own. I was especially impressed with the concluding Presto, taken at a pace designed to outrun police. The orchestra, performing like a Maserati, left pursuers in the dust and the audience on their feet.

If only they knew better what they sped away from: a good thing by a great composer that there was not enough of.

Jeff Dunn (jdunnpm@yahoo.com) is a freelance critic with a B.A. in music and a Ph.D. in geologic education. A composer of piano and vocal music, he is a member of NACUSA and president of Composers Inc.

Comments

I generally agree with the reviewer although I don’t think the Tsontakis piece is as good as she thinks, and if portions of the work need to be repeated for audience editication, then perhaps the piece is not the right work for a concert performance. As for the Mendelsshohn, I thought the piece sounded more like Beethoven than Mendelssohn. I couldn’t help but think that Ferrandis was trying to make a “big statement” with a work that was never intended to make a statement, only provide enjoyment.

Posted by Tom Martin on January 29, 2008 at 11:23 am
Classical music would be the poorer if only works that provided instant gratification were produced live at concerts. I’d be interested in hearing from Mr. Martin as to why he thinks the Tsontakis piece isn’t that good, and as to how many times he’s heard it.

I’m not sure whether “big statement” means “profound,” or “heavy.” The Mendelssohn Fourth does have profound things to say, e.g., about sonata form. Whether it’s performed too heavily or not is a matter of taste. I certainly wouldn’t call the work a bagatelle, with its funereal second movement.

Posted by Jeff Dunn on January 29, 2008 at 12:44 pm
With respect to the Tsontakis piece, I didn’t say I didn’t like it. I did, however, take issue with Mr. Dunn’s somewhat patronizing comment “I would venture that the next time Clair de Lune is performed, the conductor might … play the first movement twice to see whether an audience’s appetite for this subtle but eventually tantalizing music can be whetted..” Clearly, Mr. Dunn is both an advocate of the composer and the composition, but there may be very solid reasons why the audience didn’t “appreciate” the piece. Time and future performances will ultimately judge the worth of the composition. I applaud maestro Ferrandis for programming composers and compositions not typically heard in the concert hall. Some will strike a chord with the audience; others will not, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t want to hear them.

Posted by Tom Martin on January 30, 2008 at 11:53 am
After playing the Tsontakis work all week as a member of the orchestra (I am a violist), I have to say that I was not moved by the piece and did not think that it had a lot of depth. I have certainly played other 20th and 21st Century works that the audience did not receive well but that I found to be fascinating by concert time. I understand that new works take many listenings to appreciate, but I found this one to be rather simplistic and cliche. The melodies in the first half were just silly. I don’t think that a discussion prior to the performance of this piece would have helped the audience “understand” or enjoy it more.
As for the Bach, it’s pretty difficult to play in a “Baroque style” with 90% of the orchestra unfamiliar with this “new dialect” in 2 rehearsals.
The reviewer only commented on the last movement of the Mendelssohn, but failed to point out some of the shortcomings of the performance of the inner movements–very slow tempi and shapeless phrasing in the inner movements.
And finally, the Wagner work and its virtuostic pitfalls also point to the fact that the Santa Rosa Symphony plays in a hall with dreadful acoustics and players cannot hear each other across the stage. Yes, there are some bad intonation problems, but I would like to hear this orchestra in a resonant hall before we pass judgement on “sensitive and virtuosic” playing.

Posted by Meg Eldridge on January 31, 2008 at 10:06 pm
I thank both readers for their comments. Obviously, there is no reason why everyone has to like the same thing, or agree on degrees of profundity. The Tsontakis is interesting in that I’ve listened to the new recording of it all week and still enjoy it tremendously. What’s silly to some is thrilly to me–go figure.

As I mentioned in the review, I learned that Ferrandis DID speak to the audience for the Sunday concert (I don’t know about Tuesday). Did it help, or was the applause just as tepid?

For the Wagner, the “sensitivity,” as I noted in the review, was “projected in spades,” and should be discernable independently of acoustics. The virtuosity of the players was evident in the success of the works in the second half of the program; perhaps the “Murmers” was just not the right piece for that poor hall. Luckily there will be a new venue in the fall of 2009!

Posted by Jeff Dunn on February 3, 2008 at 1:07 am
I’m not sure what you mean by “down south,” but Marin Alsop doesn’t conduct in Marin!

Posted by Nigel Gray Bannish on February 4, 2008 at 11:55 am
Marin Alsop conducts the Cabrillo Festival orchestra in Santa Cruz–a must-hear for any Bay Area music lover in August.

Posted by Jeff Dunn on February 6, 2008 at 9:20 am