San Francisco Classical Voice

Families gathered in significant numbers on Saturday afternoon in Berkeley for a children's concert at the Julia Morgan Theater, part of the theater's policy of community outreach and involvement. The performers were members of the Empyrean Ensemble of UC Davis, currently "in residence" at this East Bay venue for the arts.

One of the works presented, Prosperous Soul, Generous Heart, by Peter Josheff (dedicated to his late father), was composed especially for the occasion. It incorporates a set of chimes made to order for the piece and played by a group of elementary and middle school students. They had collaborated with the composer on their parts.

Most of the score was written for the Empyrean Ensemble, conducted by Yu-Hui Chang. But in several places, notably at the beginning and end of the piece, the children performed their own passages, sitting onstage next to the adult musicians and Josheff and cued by him. While the two groups rarely interacted, there was a kind of rudimentary Ivesian dialog between the improvisational sound of the chimes and the more sophisticated modernism of the adult ensemble, an interesting and effective combination.

The rest of the program comprised Yu-Hui Chang's The Horizon Unfolds and Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale, both scored for the same instruments. Chang's piece treats them soloistically and as independent voices, rather than in the tight, interlocking mosaic of rhythms, motives, and textures that Stravinsky uses. Her single-movement piece had a loose, discursive, and episodic quality that was agreeable but lacked a strong feeling of momentum.

As for The Soldier's Tale, the musical part held up well. Chang led a spirited performance, often bringing out the work's vitality without undermining the more tenuous mood of the text. In this piece, the music exists primarily to illustrate the words, spoken by a narrator.

The story, a Faustian fable for adults, is intricate, elaborate, and tricky to follow. It requires an extremely skillful actor to give the rhymed couplets an air of naturalness while vividly characterizing the soldier, the devil (in various disguises), and several smaller roles.

As narrator, Anthony Craig was not completely successful. His delivery was too much the same throughout. His characters were more like caricatures, and his voice was not varied or flexible enough for the substantial text that he had to read. Changes of stage lighting helped a little but were not well integrated with the performance. Crucial elements of dramatic pacing were absent.

In any case, this work is probably too sophisticated for children below the teen years. At this concert, in fact, only Josheff's composition attempted to engage younger children's interest, by working in a simpler, colorful style of modernism and using children as adjunct performers, playing percussion instruments.

The Morgan Theater should continue its outreach in this direction by trying to create programs that are both challenging and accessible to the audience they are aiming at. One possibility might be to stage Peter and the Wolf, which has been presented elsewhere in highly imaginative and arresting dance versions. Perhaps Noye's Fludd by Britten is worth examining, as well as Master Pedro's Puppet Show by Falla. There are also Poulenc's Babar and William Schuman's The Mighty Casey, successfully staged by College of Marin's Summer Opera series a few years ago. A well-thought-out artistic collaboration may yield the best results in reaching younger audiences.

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

©2001 Jules Langert, all rights reserved