|
YEAR'S HIGHLIGHTS
December 30, 2003
|
Madama Butterfly, SF Opera, By Olivia Stapp, 1/11/03
The last note had barely stopped sounding when much of the audience was up and cheering last night at the opening performance of Madama Butterfly at the San Francisco Opera. The grown people sitting on my right were still crying, completely in the grip of the tragedy so poignantly staged by Ron Daniels.
Richard Goode, By Sarah Cahill, 2/9/03
This is a tough time for pianists who want to hear each of the
world-class pianists who are popping up all over the Bay Area, but have to
pick and choose. For many of us, though, Richard Goode's recital at
Zellerbach on Sunday afternoon was in a different league. Other pianists may
be flashier or more superficially dazzling, but one comes away from a Goode
concert feeling transformed. Maybe this is what it felt like to hear Artur
Schnabel, as if the very cells of one's body have been changed by the sheer
transcendence of his music-making.
HONORABLE MENTION FOR SYMPHONIES
Mahler Ninth, SF Symphony, By George Thomson, 4/23/03
At last Wednesday's performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony by the San Francisco Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas, some of the composer's more minute instructions — numerous bowing indications, for example — were deliberately contradicted. And yet the combination of compelling interpretation and brilliant execution that listeners have come to expect from these musicians in this repertoire was much in evidence all evening, making the performance not just a success but a triumph.
Symphony San Jose Silicon Valley, By Gary Lemco, 3/1/03
A rousing ovation greeted conductor Yasuo Shinozaki at the conclusion of his Sibelius Second Symphony with the Symphony San Jose Silicon Valley, the ensemble resuscitated out of the ashes of the defunct San Jose Symphony. Saturday evening's concert at the San Jose Performing Arts Center also offered works by Karen Tanaka and by Beethoven, each showcasing the crack ensemble and its flamboyant guest conductor — a master of color, the big gesture, and the grand line.
Berkeley Symphony, By Heuwell Tircuit, 9/29/03
With all the bad news dominating the headlines these days, something encouraging turned up in Berkeley Monday evening as the spiffy Berkeley Symphony opened its season celebrating its 25th under Kent Nagano's directorship. Zellerbach Auditorium on the University of California campus was as close to packed as I've seen it, the large orchestra playing up to very high standards during a fun program and the audience cheering to the echo. To cap the celebrations, superstar Frederica von Stade was there as soloist in Ravel's masterful Shéhérazade songs.
CHAMBER MUSIC HIGHLIGHTS
Moscow Soloists, By Michelle Dulak, 4/5/03
I went to Hertz Hall last Saturday night with the expectation of hearing a great violist. I came out two hours later with my expectation fulfilled, yes. But the Moscow Soloists deserve full billing alongside Yuri Bashmet; they're as fine a string orchestra as I've ever heard.
Is there another string orchestra with a sound so distinctive and so unified as this? The Moscow
Soloists use a fast bow, a lot of pinpoint, digging-into-the-string articulation, and not much vibrato. It's not the airy, effortless sound of one of the great English string orchestras; this is a sound with a lot of grit in it. But hardly any apparent effort. Seldom has so much sound emanated from so few with so little dramatic gesturing from anyone.
Music@Menlo, By Robert Commanday, 8/9/03
What could be more welcome during a year of terrible surprises than a happy one, blooming out of nowhere, a first-class chamber music festival on the peninsula? The conventional and irrational notion that the public's intelligence checks out during the summer months is once again refuted. And dramatically so in the peninsula region, where the Music@Menlo programs are selling out the small-capacity venues at the Menlo School in Atherton and St. Mark's Episcopal Church of Palo Alto... the performance of Beethoven's Piano Trio in B-flat, Op. 97 (Archduke) Saturday evening may have made that program the capstone of the festival.
Prague Chamber Orchestra, Eroica Trio, By John Lutterman, 10/24/03
While the ever more competitive and increasingly international world of orchestral musicians has resulted in orchestras of the highest technical caliber, the distinctive character of various regional performing traditions has often been sacrificed. It's harder nowadays to recognize immediately the difference between the string sounds or wind sections of the Philadelphia and the Cleveland or Chicago orchestras. Czech musicians have resisted these tendencies and maintained their venerable heritage perhaps more successfully than any other musical culture, and the Prague Chamber Orchestra clearly demonstrated the benefits of maintaining their tradition in Friday's performance at UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall. Their offering, an all-Beethoven program, was quite simply among some of the finest orchestral playing to grace a Bay Area stage.
CHORAL-ORCHESTRAL HIGHLIGHTS
Bach Collegium Japan, By Kip Cranna, 4/6/03
The estimable Bach Collegium Japan performed a top-notch Saint Matthew Passion at UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall on Sunday.This crack ensemble of Bach specialists was founded in 1990 by conductor and organist Masaaki Suzuki, who had earlier studied in Amsterdam and absorbed the latest in early music performance techniques from practitioners like Ton Koopman and Piet Kee. His Collegium is already known amongst American audiophiles, since it is currently in the midst of recording the complete Bach cantatas with the Swedish label BIS (they're now up to volume 20).
Jephtha, Philharmonia Baroque, by Anna Carol Dudley, 9/13/03
Handel's last oratorio, "Jephtha," is Philharmonia's season opener, and
Saturday's performance in Berkeley was a triumph. The orchestra and chorus were splendid, soloists were outstanding, and Nicholas McGegan's gift for pacing kept the ensemble tight. It was as if all the singers and players were breathing and moving together, for three glorious hours.
CHORAL HIGHLIGHTS
San Francisco Chamber Singers, by Benjamin Frandzel, 3/31/03
Ligeti, who turns 80 this year, has been unusual among the leaders
of the postwar avant-garde . . . In presenting this great composer's music alongside that
of his influences, colleagues and students last Monday at the Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi, the San Francisco Chamber Singers did their audience a valuable service. Not only did they create a setting for Ligeti's achievements, but they also presented some little-known and often marvelous music from around the world.
Slavyanka, by Rajna Klaser, 4/5/03
The concert presented by Slavyanka men's choir at St. Dominic's Catholic Church Saturday was one of those events that distinguish the San Francisco Bay Area as a unique concert culture. It is remarkable to hear Russian Orthodox Christian music performed by Slavyanka's men with such conviction and excellence, and then realize they are not Russian or even of Russian descent. It is hard to fathom the time and pure will power invested in the learning and understanding of this foreign tradition in order to reach this level of excellence. Though labeled an amateur choral ensemble, Slavyanka is a well-balanced chorus of considerable strength and superb musicianship, with a vast Eastern European repertoire and exciting programming designed by director Gregory SmirNovember
EDITORIALS
A Wide World of Classical Radio, On the Internet, Free, By Robert Commanday, 1/28/03
Don't just sit there complaining about classical music radio in the Bay Area, you have a world at your fingertips. Just turn to your computer, go to one of more than 50 Internet addresses, switch on your computer's speakers, sit back and enjoy. Through several of those online stations, you will receive the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts you are not getting on a Bay Area FM station
Lou Harrison, Beloved Icon and Pioneer, By Frederic Lieberman, 2/4/03
The musical world was stunned by the death, on Sunday, February 2, of Lou Harrison, the distinguished and much beloved composer and humanitarian. In his delightful Music Primer (1971) Lou wrote, “Someone has said that music is to be recommended because the Angels practice it.” Self-proclaimed a “glandular optimist,” certainly Lou is now cherishing the songs of that Angelic choir, and I imagine he's already started teaching them to sing in Just Intonation.
Western Opera Theater: Addio senza rancor, by Patrick Summers, 4/1/03
I heard of the demise of Western Opera Theater last week and subsequently found myself flooded with memories of my years on the road. I must confess that I hadn't consciously thought of WOT in quite some time, though I probably had been quietly waiting to hear of its inevitable passing. Western Opera Theater was not “edgy” or particularly intellectual; it had a mercifully low profile in the music business. It was only occasionally picturesque. It was unnaturally hard work. It cost more than it made. But WOT was mandated with Kurt Herbert Adler's vision of bringing opera to the people while providing practical experience to young artists, and in that it had no peer. The Western Opera Theater tour was an effervescently youthful cultural treasure in the United States and an irreplaceable part of the fabric of the San Francisco Opera Center. |
