| FESTIVAL REVIEW
Carmel Bach Festival July 24/27, 2002
|  By Scott MacClelland
Whither Weil? Artistically, the music director of the Carmel Bach Festival since 1992 remains attractively protean and unpredictable. But in his quest for the essential Bach, Bruno Weil is still a work in progress. On the one hand he knows that most of Bach's music doesn't need a conductor, per se. On the other, he still commands less insight into the Bach mystique than a Bach festival music director should.
How, otherwise, to understand Weil's dry and superficial interpretation of Cantata BWV 3 Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid ("Oh God, how much heart-sorrow") followed by his highly charged reading of the Cantata BWV 149 Man singet mit Freuden vom Sieg ("One sings with joy of the victory") on the same program? The difference was not about the big forces in the latter (with pealing trumpets and oboes) but what seemed like indifference to the mood and context of the former. Nevertheless, Weil's selections for his festival-opening program (heard July 27 at Monterey's Santa Catalina School auditorium) were clearly made as a statement about the festival overall.
The journey from sorrow to joy in this program included a personally impassioned reading of Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht and a spunky Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 directed by concertmaster Elizabeth Wallfisch and featuring flutist Robin Carlson-Peery and showoff harpsichordist John Butt. (The showoff, of course, was actually Bach himself, who wrote out — note for note — the shameless solo clavier cadenza of the first movement. Butt merely delivered, in a display of outrageous shtick that the unsmiling audience seemed to take as holy writ.)
For several seasons, Weil has included a 20th Century piece on his Saturday program, one that (usually) represents a high order of counterpoint, in obvious tribute to Bach. The string orchestra version of Verklärte Nacht has plenty of that, not least for the indulgent density of texture. Weil played the piece as if it carried autobiographical significance, exaggerating tempi and dynamics to intense effect. This was a winning performance, showing off the prowess of the orchestra, perhaps causing even those traditionally hostile toward Schoenberg to wonder why. The vocal soloists were veterans, soprano Kendra Colton, tenor Alan Bennett and baritone Sanford Sylvan. In his aria in Cantata 3, Sylvan convinced no one that he felt "hell's anguish and pain," but was more forthcoming with "might and power" in Cantata 149. Colton relapsed to her old habit of putting more expression on her face than her voice. If Bennett had feelings for the text, he concealed it well behind a plain vanilla vocalization. Newcomer mezzo-soprano Sally-Anne Russell plumbed to alto depths with authority and abundant sonority. The power of the combined festival chorale and chorus made a vivid impact in the 500-seat auditorium, an alternative to Carmel's Sunset Center, under renovation until next summer at the earliest. The chorale by itself carried the Wednesday concert at its traditional venue, the Carmel Mission Basilica (heard July 24.) The event was prepared and conducted by festival choral director Bruce Lamott, and featured the early Handel masterpiece "Dixit Dominus" and the "Reformation" Cantata BWV 79 Gott, der Herr, is Sonn' und Schild (God, the Lord, is Sun and Shield.)
The chorale never sounded better than in the opening motets by William Byrd, the Roman Catholic who was retained at the pleasure of Queen Elizabeth I even while he and his family were being harassed by Anglicans. Here, Lamott played a single instrument with many voices, its soaring melodies shaping phrases and weaving textures of confident richness and luminous clarity. Things went not always as smoothly in the Handel, owing to the increased choral divisions and unpredictable phrasing and voice leading crafted by the young composer, then still in his formative years in Italy. But the work itself got a handsome presentation — its first in Carmel — sharply reflecting the likes of Corelli, Vivaldi, and even Lully, more than it points towards the mature Handel style. The "Tu es sacerdos" (Thou are a priest) however, does anticipate the choral style heard in Messiah, and ideas in the "Gloria Patri" resurface in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. Handel's Organ Concerto in F, with its cuckoos and nightingales comparing notes in the solo part, led the way to the Bach, an assured and ardent choral reading, punctuated by two horns and timpani. The caliber of solo singing, drawn from the chorale, was uneven but always earnest. Countertenor Foster Sommerlad made a strong impression in the alto aria "Gott ist unser Sonn' und Schild." (Since 1978, Scott MacClelland has written music criticism and journalism for all the major newspapers on the Monterey Peninsula, and for the Metro papers in Santa Cruz and San Jose. During the same period, he has taught music history for Monterey Peninsula College.) ©2002 Scott MacClelland, all rights reserved |
