San Francisco Classical Voice

The Empyrean Ensemble, from UC Davis, brought both new and older modern standbys to Berkeley's Julia Morgan Theater Saturday. It was the three premieres that generated the real interest.

Wayne Peterson's new Inscape, for flutes, clarinets, and percussion, was by turns, lyrical, playful, and energetic, its single movement made up of several connected, contrasting sections. Included were a calm adagio for alto flute and bass clarinet and a mellow, jazzy scherzo featuring the marimba along with the winds. The mostly pitched percussion was well integrated as an equal partner throughout this engaging and lively opening work.

George Edwards' Trio for Violin, Cello, and Piano was darker and more introspective. Made up of intricately woven, chromatically linear strands, this composition showed remarkable independence in its contrapuntally interactive ensemble writing. The piece would have been enriched if at some point it had broadened out to include a major textural contrast. Instead, in maintaining a consistent focus on his original format, Edwards limited the overall effect somewhat.

Louis Karchin's Rustic Lances (1985), for clarinet, violin, and marimba, was a more vertically aligned piece, as its title might suggest, animated more by rhythm and timbral contrast than by melody. Its colorful energy was refreshing for a while but dissipated too soon, without giving strong enough definition to the composition's larger structural dimensions.

Two sizable works from the 1940s were also on the program. Shostakovich's Piano Trio No. 2 opens with the cello playing ethereal harmonics, joined gradually by the violin and then the piano in low octaves. This unusual, haunting introduction evolved into a movement of great conviction and authority. It was followed by a slow passacaglia, a bumptiously parodistic scherzo, and a finale dominated by a chromatically inflected Yiddish folk tune. Though well shaped and masterfully composed, like much of Shostakovich's music, there was a general lack of spontaneity and freshness of invention that should transcend skillful craftsmanship. Rather, I too often seemed to hear the professional composer just going through his paces. Perhaps a more resonant hall than the Morgan theater might have helped to project and intensify Shostakovich's characteristically thin, spare textures.

Bohuslav Martinu's Trio for Flute, Cello, and Piano was cheery, bright, energetic, and inventive. For all that, it had an ongoing tendency to veer into protracted stretches of blandness and a kind of clever deftness that is endemic to neoclassicism. Some of the interest generated by the more recent works on this program was due to their freedom from the deeply ingrained stylistic attitudes of mid-century modernism that are evident in the music of Martinu and Shostakovich, definitely music of a bygone era. Contemporary music nowadays encompasses a fluid, more open, and inclusive approach when handling its expressive resources.

The largely convincing performances on tonight's concert were performed by pianist Gwendolyn Mok, cellist Thalia Moore, violinist Terrie Baune, flutist Tod Brody, clarinetist Peter Josheff, and percussionist David Carlisle.

(Jules Langert is a composer and teacher who resides in the East Bay.)

©2000 Jules Langert, all rights reserved