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SYMPHONY REVIEW
April 26, 2004
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By Jeff Dunn
Appropriate to this age of downsizing and emphasis on youth, Barry Jekowsky led twelve to twenty of the finest members of the California Symphony in a scaled-down concert of early works by famous composers. The results were extremely well performed and enjoyable.
Four composers were represented, aged 18 to 28 at the time of composition,
all but one of them only 30% through their life span. But were their
compositions (1) worthy in themselves and (2) representative of their
creators' later fame?
Rakastava, by Sibelius, is better known in its original 1893 version as a choral work. It is certainly representative of the later Sibelius, since he
revised it in 1911 at the height of his powers for string orchestra and
percussion. Nevertheless it contains youthful elements. The music is
lightly textured, pensive, but missing the long-sustained pedal tones one associates with the symphonies. No structural edifices are erected. The
music flows through three short programmatic movements and is gone,
incidental in quality. The concluding measures, in lingering lento, a
farewell to a lover, call for a stiff drink in recompense. Transference
caused me to equate the abandoned lover with the percussionist, who had only a few quiet notes to play on the timpani plus two or three tings on the
triangle. Yes to (1) and (2), and superbly realized by Jekowsky and his crew
of 12.
Instead of by alcohol, the mood set up by Sibelius was dissipated by Copland's Music for the Theater, his earliest major work after the “Organ” Symphony. Here, twenty players did such a good job they sounded like forty. Jekowsky preceded the performance by having the group play excerpts for audience ears to seek out later, notably a "three blind mice" sequence and a semi-quote of "East Side, West Side." This use of short on-stage previews is an excellent education technique for acquainting audiences with unfamiliar works. While pooh-poohed by some critics, its efficacy is supported by audience polls and should be considered by all conductors. The only dangers to avoid are lack of preparation, any tendency to go on too long, and overuse. The Copland work was written a year after the famous premiere of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and contains many jazz elements, as might be expected from its title. Textures reminiscent of Stravinsky's L'Histoire Soldat abound, but the music is sure-fire Copland. It should be heard as often as his standard repertoire works. The care with which Jekowsky prepared the music was everywhere apparent. This was the highlight of the program. After intermission, eleven musicians performed Janácek's Suite for Strings of 1877. Unlike the preceding works, none of the later genius emerges from the conventional writing. No hint of the characteristic freneticism and extreme range of the later music is detectable. That being said, the work was pleasant enough and might have made fine background music during hot baths at Marienbad. Whether there were any depths to plumb in the music was not apparent in Jekowsky's interpretation, which emphasized perfection of note above kindling any latent passion in the music.
Continuing the strategy of having fewer performers than the age of the composer at the time of composition, Jekowsky concluded the evening with Mozart's Symphony No. 29. Sixteen on-the-money instrumentalists did the piece proud, especially the horns. While the symphony lacked the longer development sections and fugal explorations of the later masterpieces, no one can deny that Mozart at eighteen had already achieved immortal mastery of his medium. At this rate, may we expect the 24-year-old Strauss' Don Juan with an ensemble of 23 in a future season? An expert on the young and thin, Jekowsky, might well bring it off!
(Jeff Dunn is a freelance critic with a B.A. in music and a Ph.D. in Geologic Education. A composer of piano and vocal music, he is a member of NACUSA, a Bay Area correspondent for the journal 21st-Century Music, and President of Composers, Inc.)
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