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TRIBUTE
February 6, 2005
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By Jules Langert
Fittingly, Berkeley's First Unitarian Church marked composer Herb
Bielawaıs seventy-fifth birthday with a celebratory concert of his music on
Sunday evening. Bielawa, Professor of Music Emeritus at San Francisco State
University, has been affiliated with the Kensington Church for several
years, and his wife, Sandra Soderland, a distinguished performer and
scholar in her own right, is currently the churchıs organist. He has sung
in the choir, composed music for the service, and holds annual concerts of
his contemporary music ensemble, Sounds New, in the church's atrium.
Four of the five pieces on the program received first
performances, and of these, the final work, Bielawa's three-movement Piano
Concerto, stood out as particularly substantial and effective. The composer
conducted his chamber reduction of the score for flute, clarinet, violin,
cello, and organ, and pianist Jerry Kuderna gave an impressive performance
of the difficult and complex solo part, his virile, assured playing
confidently shaping a path through Bielawa's often dense and demanding
keyboard writing.
It was the slow, introspective second movement that made the strongest
immediate impression. Titled ”discorso,” it begins and ends with a gently
assertive, lyrical refrain for the piano against a sustained instrumental
backdrop, a kind of dialogue vaguely reminiscent of the slow movement in
Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto. The middle part is freer and wider
ranging, with soloist and ensemble elaborately and animatedly interwoven
The outer movements, propulsive and motoric, are led by the piano, and here
the reduced forces could not establish enough of a counterweight. This piece
definitely needs a sizeable orchestra to realize its full potential.
Perhaps an adventurous local group like the Berkeley Symphony would be
interested in programming it with Kuderna as the dynamic soloist.
Bielawa's song cycle Stone Settings was given a balanced, appealing performance by soprano Anna Carol Dudley with the composer as pianist. The songs are set to texts by poet Arlene Stone, whose work Bielawa encountered when staying at the Montalvo Center for the Arts in Saratoga, CA. Their highly charged imagery evokes a series of troubled, flawed relationships, but Bielawa's lyrical, thoughtful renditions downplay the angst inherent in the words, except in the most disturbing poem, “The Marriage House,” which begins “The breaking dishes burst like bombs.” In this case Bielawa's dramatic setting aptly mirrors the verbal tumult. In the first half of the concert the most effective work was the Three Prayers on Unitarian Texts, sung by the UUCB Chancel Choir directed by Bryan Baker. Good, eminently singable music for the a cappella mixed choir expressively enhanced the three modern texts, “Most Holy One,” “Earth Mother” (written by well-known environmentalist and activist, Starhawk), and “Fire of the Spirit.” The Choir's performance was meditative and unaffected, as it might be sung during a church service. In that context Bielawa's settings were particularly apt, being modern in style but not self-consciously so. The concert opened with Cloning Around, a duet for French Horn and electronic sounds based on the horn timbre. Jan Pusina, the work's dedicatee, sat onstage with his instrument, wearing earphones and playing in tandem with the pre-recorded electronics. While the idea was a good one, the rhythm and texture of the electronic sounds was too regular and unsurprising. The piece seemed rather tame, with a limited palette of motives and gestures. The electronics were no match for the beauty and magnetism of the live performer and his instrument. A lot more inventiveness would be needed to imbue the artificial sounds with a semblance of life. Bielawa composed Feedback for Two Organs on a commission by the Minneapolis Convention Center, which asked for a festive piece, light-hearted and “to some extent, familiar.” To fulfill this request he used parts of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in d minor as a reference point for the work, and we hear a few recognizable quotations during the piece, especially from the Toccata's famous opening phrase. How much this was done in a spirit of irony is difficult to judge, but the audience responded enthusiastically to the composition and to its performers, Sandra Soderlund and John Karl Hirten. Indeed the entire concert was well received by a fairly large crowd with many musicians attending, followed by a reception for the honoree and his performers.
(Jules Langert is a composer and teacher who resides in the East Bay.)
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Herbert Bielawa