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CHAMBER MUSIC REVIEW
October 25, 2004
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By Heuwell Tircuit
A fine program of two new works, an honored modern classic and a little Baroque masterpiece formed the opening concert for the Left Coast Ensemble's season last week in the Green Room of the Veteran's War Memorial Building. Handsomely played and very well received, the program struck like a stick in the eye at the Dumbing Down of American culture. It wore its intellectuality proudly, even a bit defiantly.
Each of the group's five season concerts features an instrument or coupling. Last Monday's program highlighted the oboe and, to a lesser extent, chamber music with guitar. Flutist Stacey Pelinka, oboist Tom Nugent and clarinetist Jerome Simas opened with Wallingford Riegger's Duos for Three Woodwinds (1944), followed by the West Coast premiere of Hanna Kulenty's Stretto (1998) for three winds and guitar, with Pelinka and Simas again, cellist Tanya Tomkins and guitarist Michael Goldberg. After intermission, we heard Bach's Trio Sonata in G Major, BWV 1039, by the same quartet that played the Kulenty. To close, there was the premiere of Laurie San Martin's Concerto for Four (2004), involving Pelinka, oboist Andrea Plesnarski , cellist Tomkins and pianist Eric Zivian.
Riegger's title Duos for three Woodwinds would seem a non sequitur. The catch is that the work consists of three small three-movement sonatas (sonatinas, if you like), each for a pair of the three instruments. The first is for flute and oboe, the second for oboe and clarinet, the third for flute and clarinet. What is interesting structurally is that the whole work is like one large sonata, with each of the three sonatinas comprising one of its movements.
Although Riegger's music is in his modified 12-tone style, the sound is generally merry and bristles with original handling of woodwind textures. The excellent playing of Pelinka, Nugent and Simas only drove home the undeserved neglect of this important twentieth-century American. Such are current programming policies in America today. San Martin's Concerto, written for this ensemble and here receiving its premiere, is roughly based on concepts of the Trio Sonata in Bach's The Musical Offering. There are even references to the theme Frederick the Great gave Bach for improvisation, which formed the basis for Bach's Offering. There are, however, only two movements in San Martin's Concerto, both in relatively fast tempos. Rather brief overall, San Martin's piece proved to be very effective, relatively light and utterly free of clichės. Hers is a talent of many strengths, including an essential virtue: originality. She has invented a very interesting fresh view of sonic possibilities. Kulenty, Polish by birth, also combined fresh notions by piling melodies over one another in almost chant-like textures. It was as if instruments were in unison, but actually playing only a hair's length ahead of or behind one another. The dreamy effects eventually built in to a slightly frantic climax, only to fade back into utter calm — a basic arch form, clichė-free although owing something to the textural concepts of Gyorgy Ligeti.
The Bach G major trio Sonata is a major standard, well known to all lovers of Baroque music. The shift here was using guitarist Goldberg for the continuo rather than the more expected harpsichord. That's no big matter, as plucked instruments were often employed in place of keyboard instruments during the Baroque period. In this case, that was only confirmed by the stylish elegance and uncommon accuracy of Goldberg's playing. I do not see how the Trio Sonata could have been improved upon. These musicians are all experienced in early music performance as well and modern styles. Cellist Tomkins, for example, has played with Philharmonia Baroque, La Petite Bande, and the Netherlands Bach Society. It also made for a nice contrast with the three unfamiliar works, a not unimportant factor in good programming. The Left Bank Ensemble's next set, in Mill Valley on December 2 and San Francisco on the 6th, will feature music for piano and strings: Ligeti, Dvorák and Carlos Sanchez Gutierrez. A similar pair for February is devoted to the clarinet; March, to flute; and in May, the double bass. The group is well worth keep an eye and ear on.
(Heuwell Tircuit, composer, performer and writer, was chief writer for Gramophone Japan and for 21 years a music reviewer for the SF Chronicle, previously for the Chicago American and Asahi Evening News.)
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Laurie San Martin
Wallingford Riegger