Music News
Fleisher: Concerts, Master Class, Recordings
Leon Fleisher is celebrating his 80th birthday with a busy round of activities in his native San Francisco and elsewhere, including concerts with the S.F. Symphony on Oct. 16 and 18 (Davies Symphony Hall) and Oct. 17 (Flint Center, Cupertino), and a 10 a.m. master class at the S.F. Conservatory of Music on Oct. 20. (Tickets are $15-$20.)
Also, Sony BMG Masterworks has signed the pianist to a recording deal, and early next year it will release his first two-hand piano concerto recording in 40 years — a trio of Mozart concertos recorded with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. Fleisher’s career, which began at age 8, was interrupted for decades by focal dystonia, which weakened his right hand so he could perform only works written for the left hand. Having regained use of both hands in recent years, he is playing Mozart concertos on a national tour and recording the No. 23 in A Major, K. 488; No. 12 in A Major; K. 414; and Concerto No. 7 in F Major for two pianos, K. 242, for which he is joined by his wife, Katherine Jacobson-Fleisher.
Fleisher’s Mozart concert tour continues in Detroit, Syracuse (NY), London, Baltimore, New York, Singapore, and Sacramento, but locally, he changed from the planned Concerto No. 23 to the Beethoven Concerto No. 5 (”Emperor”). The San Francisco and Cupertino concerts are conducted by Marek Janowski, and include the Schumann Symphony No. 2 in C Major, Op. 61.
A fertile ground for child prodigies, San Francisco has also served as the venue for debuts by Yehudi Menuhin (at age 7) and Isaac Stern (11). A year after his debut, Fleisher began studying with Artur Schnabel, and then made his Carnegie Hall debut (1944), playing with Pierre Monteux and the New York Philharmonic. Over the next two decades, he performed around the world and garnered numerous honors, including first prize at the Queen Elisabeth Piano Competition in Belgium in 1952. Fleisher was signed to Columbia Masterworks in 1954, created a catalog and, in retrospect, in doing so he documented history. Schnabel left a musical imprint on Fleisher’s interpretation of classic works. Masterworks recently issued six of his earliest recordings from the treasured decade of Fleisher’s career between 1954 and 1963.
Leon Fleisher (standing, left) at last year’s Kennedy Center awards program, with fellow honorees Diana Ross, and Brian Wilson; (sitting) Steve Martin and Martin Scorsese
Free Music Bonanza at the Temple
Free chamber-music concerts can be found here and there (for example, see the SFSU item below), but the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music is offering a unique event on Sunday: a seven-hour marathon by some of the Bay Area’s outstanding musicians in Temple Emanu-El, Lake at Arguello.
The Chamber Music Day begins at 3 p.m. with the Allison Lovejoy (piano) and Dave Scott (trumpet) Duo and concludes at 10 p.m., with the Lee Trio. The “Live + Free” event will feature the Left Coast Ensemble, the Del Sol and Cypress String Quartets, soprano Heidi Melton, and others.
Sponsors include Congregation Emanu-El, Greenerprinter.com, New Leaf Paper, Sutros.com, Your Daily Staple, and Zellerbach Family Foundation.
Heidi Melton
S.F. State’s Morrison Artists Series
SFSU’s free series of chamber music concerts opens its 56th season on Oct. 19, with Quartet New Generation. The 3 p.m. Sunday concerts in the school’s McKenna Theater continue with:
- American Chamber Players, Nov. 16
- Time for Three, Dec. 14
- Alexander String Quartet, Feb. 22
- Rossetti String Quartet, March 22
- Cuarteto Latinoamericano, with Manuel Barrueco, guitar, April 19
Cuarteto Latinoamericano
Korngold Encore: Better Dead, Less Red
Thursday’s fifth (and penultimate) performance of the San Francisco Opera production of Korngold’s Die tote Stadt was a triumph in many ways. Let me count the ways, beginning with something reporters don’t usually consider: the audience.
On this umpteenth day of the dissolving economy, mentioned in the libretto with the aside “The party is over,” precious few of the War Memorial’s 3,252 red plush seats remained unoccupied. A nearly full house, even if many of the $235 orchestra seats were taken up by rush customers at $30 a pop, is truly remarkable, especially for an obscure opera shown here for the first time in its 88-year history.
Not only did people pack the house, this was an outstanding audience: quiet, attentive, and responding with enthusiasm. Other than whatever problems you might have had in your location, the only disappointment was the too-quick applause at the final curtain. Surely, that utterly glorious finale deserves a few seconds of silence. Still, the applause was big and growing, coming equally from newbies, repeaters, and even the echt-Viennese George Cleve for whom this is music coursing through his veins.
Cleve’s colleague in the pit, Donald Runnicles, once again conducted a magnificent performance, overcoming the heroic singers only a few times, letting the poor, overworked musicians of the orchestra engage in delirium seldom heard when Wagner’s name is not on the marquee. Both the volume and the orgiastic nature of the music are reminiscent of Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, and wouldn’t it be great to have a staged production of it in San Francisco for all Korngold-widows in the making following Sunday’s last performance?
Thursday’s was the performance to capture for the certain radio broadcast and possible video presentations of the future; I trust David Gockley’s Koret Media Suite was on duty when Torsten Kerl sang a definitive Paul, Emily Magee’s Marie/Marietta was a superlative Brünnhilde-Butterfly, and young Lucas Meachem provided a mature, superbly musical Frank/Fritz.
The production itself — Willy Decker’s, in Meisje Hummel’s revival — now works smoothly, effectively, running the gamut from gripping representations of nightmares to the utterly simple and exactly right conclusion of Paul walking out into light and life, from the dark, suffocating room of the “Dead City.”
Bye-bye, Dead City
Musicians Say the Darndest Things
Unaccustomed as he appears to be to public speaking, the great pianist Emanuel Ax was struggling Friday night at Davies Symphony Hall to say something that makes sense, and even if he didn’t quite make it, getting there was more than half the fun.
Searching for words to describe the Szymanowski Symphonie Concertante for Piano and Orchestra he was about to perform, Ax came upon the idea that the timpani, “no timpano,” has an important role in the piece. Realizing that he was wrong (there are actually five timpanists involved, with twice the number of instruments), he corrected himself, but the conductor, Peter Oundjian — normally a fine speaker — picked up on the singular/plural bit and suggested, helpfully (and awkwardly), that it’s like having a “spaghetto.”
To which Ax responded that with his diet, it has to be “Spaghetti-ohs” and started pondering the plural, but Oundjian — to his credit — changed the subject. I am not making this up, you know, a truly bizarre low point in the history of the S.F. Symphony’s fine “6.5″ series, Friday concerts that start at 6:30 p.m. and include, supposedly, substantial introductions to the music.
MTT, James Conlon, David Robertson, and others have made these events entertaining and educational. Ax tried to improvise and he fell flat (or worse). It’s a good thing that once seated, he performed superbly; see Jeff Dunn’s review in this edition.
Incidentally, at the concert, I suddenly heard — loud and clear — the main theme of “There’s a Place for Us” in full, from West Side Story, near the end of the Strauss. It would be interesting to find the chronology of Bernstein conducting the Strauss and writing the WSS score. Not that I am suspecting anything …
A comment on the Szymanowski from friend and reader Charlie Cockey in Brno:
Szymanowski often commented on the fact that he wasn’t a virtuoso pianist, and thus that much of what he wrote he played isn’t virtuosic. The truth is that Szymanowski wasn’t a half-bad player. And his music is now easy to play. This still doesn’t make it “virtuoso music” in the manner of Liszt or Strauss, or even, harking back to earlier times, much of Schumann (who is also incredibly pianistic, but his virtuoso stuff is damned difficult).
I have both some of his early work — such as Preludes and Etudes and Theme with Variations, of which at least one variation I cannot play at all — and some of his later, more harmonically spiky stuff, in particular his magnificent Mazurkas: They are just great, and by and large quite approachable, if you’re willing to put in the time on getting the thorns smoothed out.
Karol Szymanowski
Pierre Boulez, Contemporary
Not every music lover is a fan of Pierre Boulez, but it’s hard to imagine anyone involved in music whose interest would not be piqued by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players’ upcoming “Contemporary Insights: Music and Conversation” program about Boulez’ Le Marteau sans maître (The hammer without a master). David Milnes will lead the discussion and performance of the early Boulez work (first performed in 1955, when he was 30) of “total serialist technique” with its highly unusual orchestration.
Set to the surrealist poetry of René Char, the work is written for an alto (SFCMP is using mezzo Janna Baty), flute, three percussions, viola, and guitar. Even the venue is unusual: the Presidio Interfaith Chapel, a 1930s successor to the Spanish Presidio’s 1776 chapel. The event is scheduled for Sunday, Dec. 7 at 4:30 p.m. Admission is free, though a $10 donation is suggested.
The work will also be presented the next night (Dec. 8) at the Yerba Buena Center as part of the Contemporary Music Players’ “Furious Craft” concert. The program also includes works by Luca Francesconi, Kaija Saariaho, and Zhou Long.
SFCMP’s next concert “American Mosaic” is on Nov. 3 at Herbst Theatre. The program: Elliott Carter’s Luimen (Moods) (1997); Reynold Tharp’s Littoral (2006), with Julie Steinberg, piano; Dmitri Tymoczko’s Four Dreams (2006); Lei Liang’s Trio (2002); Mario Davidovsky’s Synchronisms 12 (2006), with Carey Bell, clarinet; and Mario Diaz de León’s 8.8.06 (2006).
Presidio Interfaith Chapel
What Does Classical Voice Have to Do with Hula?
Everything, if the hula in question is from Na Lei Hulu — full name: Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu, or “the many-feathered wreaths at the summit, held in high esteem.” No kidding.
As we have often stated, Patrick Makuakane’s performing organization is an extraordinary group of singers and dancers; their productions combine the best of folklore and Broadway shows. Even according to the dictionary definition of classical music — “Traditional genre of music conforming to an established form and appealing to critical interest and developed musical taste” — Na Lei Hulu belongs here.
So, the news about the troupe’s show this year: It’s about the legendary navigator Maui, after whom the island is named. As usual, the show features a range of Hawaiian traditions, folklores, and personalities through hula mua, which combines traditional hula movements to non-Hawaiian music, as well as hula kahiko, the traditional pre-Western style of Hawaiian dance.
The place is the Palace of Fine Arts, shows are Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., on Sunday at noon there is a one-hour “kid-friendly” version (with $10 admission) before the last show at 3 p.m. on Sunday.
Lola Tortolero, of Na Lei Hulu
Photo by Julie Mau
Two Critics Revisit Bonesetter
One includes a bit of revisionist history of the San Francisco Opera’s intendancy: That would be John Rockwell, who says that current General Director David Gockley — “an odd duck, weirdly recessive in person, a curious mixture of bravery and conservative timidity…” — came up with the Stewart Wallace-Amy Tan The Bonesetter’s Daughter that Rockwell “wound up liking a lot more than I thought I would.”
That faint praise is coupled with another round of praise for “old and dear friend” Pamela Rosenberg, Gockley’s predecessor. And once again, Rockwell’s admiration for “her abbreviated tenure” passes over silently the issue of Rosenberg’s virtual bankruptcy of the company. The Fiscal Year 2003 budget was expected to include a $9.2 million shortfall, which was eventually plugged by raiding the Opera’s endowment and a big donation from a fan. But evidence is now emerging that the potential deficit might have been twice that figure, bringing the company to the threshold of a temporary shutdown. That and today’s contrasting fiscal stability don’t get much “ink” from New York and Los Angeles observers.
John Rockwell
The other retrospect of Bonesetter comes from Anthony Tomassini’s Sunday column in The New York Times about new operas in general, in which he expresses the same kind of reluctant negativity I have experienced about Bonesetter all along:
This project was emblematic of a more elusive, frustrating pitfall: that in the search for profundity, otherwise skillful creators may succumb to the temptation of milking music for its nonverbal, elemental power, rather than heeding the specifics of good storytelling. The resulting opera, with music by Stewart Wallace and a libretto by Tan, too often listed into abstract episodes of musical and dramatic vacuity.
The Bonesetter’s Daughter was all the more disappointing because there were engrossing aspects to the work. Here was a worthy project based on an intriguing novel, involving an immense effort from the creative team, full of good intentions and talented artists.
Wallace, whose best known previous opera is Harvey Milk, is a capable and professional composer, though rather derivative. Slipping into a common trap for the creators of new operas, he, Tan and the director Chen Shi-Zheng overly mythologize this richly detailed story about three generations of Chinese women, producing long, hazy, and hokey scenes.
From my reading of a book by the music critic Ken Smith about the making of The Bonesetter’s Daughter, one warning sign came early in the creative process. After a nine-month campaign by Mr. Wallace to persuade Ms. Tan to adapt her novel for the stage, Mr. Smith writes, Mr. Wallace was convinced that “as far as personal themes and dramatic structure were concerned,” he and Ms. Tan “were already on the same page.” But there was one major problem: The composer “had no idea what the opera should sound like.”
S.F. Ballet’s ‘American Tour’
San Francisco Ballet is performing at the New York City Center for a week, ending on Oct. 18. The company’s three mixed-repertory programs — most of it from the New Works Festival — mark the Ballet’s 75th season, which includes seven New York premieres.
Program A features George Balanchine’s Divertimento No. 15 and the New York premieres of Christopher Wheeldon’s Within the Golden Hour and Yuri Possokhov’s Fusion. Program B has Helgi Tomasson’s Concerto Grosso and Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments, as well as the New York premieres of Tomasson’s The Fifth Season and Mark Morris’ Joyride. Program C includes the New York premieres of Tomasson’s On a Theme of Paganini, Val Caniparoli’s Ibsen’s House, and Jorma Elo’s Double Evil.
From Joyride
Janos Gereben (janosg@gmail.com) is a regular contributor to San Francisco Classical Voice.
©2008 By Janos Gereben, all rights reserved.
I, too, heard the theme from “There´s a Place for Us” when I attended the Thursday concert. It really made me perk up my listening!
Posted by Albert J. Vizinho on October 14, 2008 at 7:18 pm
These things pop up with interesting regularity.
Has anyone other than me heard what seems to be a quick, playful - and direct quote - from Kurt Weill’s SEVEN DEADLY SINS that shows up in Francis Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos?
Posted by Marc Overton on October 15, 2008 at 9:47 am
I recently interview Emanuel Ax and Yefim Bronfman for Carnegie Hall. They were a total delight: informative, witty, and serious by turn. Manny may have stumbled verbally this time around, but he is often as on his toes verbally as he is musically.
Posted by Jason Victor Serinus on October 15, 2008 at 10:24 am
Equality California is proud to note that Maestro Fleisher will be performing at a fundraiser to defeat Proposition 8 while he’s in town. For more information, see www.eqca.org/piano.
Posted by Paula Fleisher on October 15, 2008 at 4:06 pm