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CONTEMPORARY MUSIC REVIEW
November 6, 2004
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By Jonathan Russell
Saturday night, at the San Francisco Conservatory's Hellman Hall, the Conservatory's Blueprint new music series presented a fresh and colorful program centered around the works of Kurt Weill. Following on a stellar concert centered on Ligeti a few weeks ago, the program indicated that this series is becoming an important part of the City's new music scene and that the Conservatory students and faculty have a lot to contribute thereto.
The concert opened with a captivating performance of four Weill cabaret songs by the young mezzo-soprano Ariela Morgenstern. The songs themselves were well chosen and complemented one another nicely, from the sultry habañera ”Youkali” and the ”Matrosen Tango” to the bitter and sarcastic "Der Abschiedbrief" (The Farewell Letter), to the bluesy Broadway-style “I'm A Stranger Here Myself” from the musical One Touch of Venus. Morgenstern successfully captured the full range of styles, shifting effortlessly from her deep and husky chest voice to more-operatic lyrical passages and on to quasi-spoken cabaret. Most importantly, she was an actress through and through, moving around the stage, making facial expressions and gestures, and singing the words with dramatic inflection and timing. She had panache and charisma that were infectious and the audience could not help but applaud after each of the numbers, even though they were presented in the program as a set. She was ably accompanied by her mother, Inara Morgenstern, though it was an unfortunate decision to leave the piano lid all the way down: Ariela was in no danger of being drowned out by the piano, and the closed lid gave a slightly muffled and less incisive feel to the accompaniment. In the end this was a minor problem, however, since all eyes and ears were focused on the enthralling singer.
The other Weill piece on the program, taking up the entire second half, was the Concerto for Violin and Wind Instruments, composed in 1924. As soon as the players were all assembled on stage, it looked as though something must be wrong – a whole mob of raucous wind instruments faced off against one lone violinist. What composer in his right mind would try to write such a thing? It seems Mr. Weill was aiming to have a little fun at the violinists' expense; not only does he set a whole pack of winds against the violinist, but he doesn't even try to domesticate them, giving them exactly the kinds of characteristic powerful figures that winds like to play. It is up to the violinist to outrun or overpower them, and Bettina Mussumeli rose to the task admirably, playing with power and intensity but still, somehow, with expression and sensitivity as well. Much of the first movement does indeed have the feeling of the violin desperately trying to overpower and outrun the winds and Mussumeli – whose lovely brightly-colored shirt with red tassels gave me the image of some rare colorful bird being chased by ravenous beasts – brought this off very dramatically.
The second movement is more warm and gentle, with the feel of a slightly drunken Shostakovichian dance. The last movement is a rollicking march with an energetic and satisfying finish. Throughout, Mussumeli played with flair and manic intensity making for an exhilarating performance. The Conservatory's New Music Ensemble under the direction of Nicole Paiement performed the Concerto with great precision, clarity, and energy. Clarinetists Ryan Ibbetson and Jeffrey Anderle set the tone with a beautiful opening duet, and Katrina Walters' lovely crystalline flute solo in the second movement was also noteworthy. And speaking of Mussumeli's shirt, I was happy to see the Ensemble go with a solid brightly-colored shirt scheme which fit the colorful music perfectly and was a very welcome change from their usual all-black. Following the cabaret songs on the first half were two much newer pieces, the U.S. premiere of Dusan Bogdonovic's Village Music (2003) and Jorge Liderman's Swirling Streams (2002). Village Music, in two movements, written originally for a National Steel Guitar but played here by David Tanenbaum on a regular classical guitar, featured clever use of various effects, such as slapping the strings and the body of the guitar and detuning the strings after they were struck to get the effect of a glissando. Bogdonovic uses these techniques in a very refreshing way, not for atmospheric textures but to get a rhythmic groove going, a groove made up of these contrasting sounds and textures. Somewhere towards the middle of the second movement, the piece seemed to meander a bit but came back with an exciting ending. Swirling Streams is scored for the unlikely combination of string trio, bass clarinet and guitar – yet this piece makes the combination sound as natural and obvious as a string quartet. The title is very apt – much of the piece has a gently dizzying and swirling quality with many changes in color and texture. The piece had great rhythmic vitality, as it bumped and swirled, with a satisfying sense of motion yet with constantly unpredictable and surprising rhythmic twists. This was contrasted by some beautiful moments of stillness with icy overlapping chords between the guitar-bass-clarinet combination and the string trio. Although the textures were all interesting, the piece did start to feel a little long towards the end, as if there were just a few too many textural changes to sustain my interest.
One of the great surprises of this piece was how successfully the bass clarinet and guitar turned out to blend together. Jeffrey Anderle on bass clarinet and David Tanenbaum on guitar managed to meld their sounds, with the guitar providing a little more ping to the bass clarinet, and the bass clarinet giving more depth and resonance to the guitar. The string trio of Yuri Cho, violin, Charith Premawardhana, viola, and Hannah Addario-Berry, cello was impeccable. The piece featured many non-vibrato soft string chords, and the trio achieved a beautiful blend and spot-on intonation on these chords. The whole ensemble played with energy and precision and was clearly and energetically conducted by Nicole Paiement. All in all, it was a very satisfying concert and makes me optimistic about the Conservatory's continued and growing role in San Francisco's new music scene.
(Jonathan Russell is a Professor of Musicianship at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and an editor with PBA Music Publishing. He is active in the bay area as a clarinetist, bass clarinetist, and composer.)
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Kurt Weill