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SYMPHONY REVIEW
October 9, 2005
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By Alexander Kahn
What do Manuel de Falla, George Gershwin, Claude Debussy, and Maurice Ravel have in common? The answer was provided on Sunday
night, October 11, at a Marin Symphony concert that featured works by the four composers. Addressing the audience before the start
of the program, Music Director Alasdair Neale spoke eloquently of the links between French music and Spanish music during the early
part of the 20th century: French composers like Ravel and Debussy were fascinated by Spanish music, and Spanish composer
Manuel de Falla spent many years living and working in Paris. As for Gershwin, while the connection to Spain is tenuous, the
composer did make a famous trip to Paris in 1929 and sparked up a long-term friendship with Ravel.
The highlight of the evening was certainly Gershwin: his Piano Concerto in F, with Jeffrey Kahane as soloist.
Kahane's musical star has been rising steadily over the past few years, culminating this year in his appointment as Music Director
of the Colorado Symphony. Soon after the start of the concerto, I quickly understood why. Kahane's extraordinary musicianship and
musical imagination shone throughout his ebullient and vibrant playing. He employed a magically light touch, one that allowed
for crystal clarity in his voicings and for crisp, well-defined rhythms. His musicianship infected the whole orchestra,
eliciting wonderfully expressive solos from the oboe and trumpet sections during the work's languid second movement.
Kahane's experience as a conductor caused him to remain in constant contact with the orchestra. There was remarkably close communication between Kahane and Neale, who acted as a subtle accompanist, keeping his conducting technique minimal and
clear and adjusting nimbly to Kahane's nuances of tempo. Kahane's willingness to work with the orchestra rather than force himself
upon it had its downside, though. PPassages were sometimes engulfed in the texture and tone of the orchestra
rather than rising above it.
The Gershwin was preceded by the second suite from Manuel de Falla's The Three-Cornered Hat, music drawn from the ballet
commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev. Although Neale brought out the incisive rhythms of the score, the performance seemed to lack
spirit and color. In general, all evening Neale's tempos were on the slow side — safe to the point of too-obvious caution. And in the Falla,
the sound quality was blended and heavily balanced towards the middle register, which failed to highlight the sonic variety of the piquant orchestration. The same issues arose during the second half of the program, which comprised Debussy's Ibéria
and Ravel's Rapsodie Espagnole. In all three cases the orchestra played with impressive virtuosity and rhythmic ensemble, but
lacked drive and vibrancy of tone. The poor acoustics of the Veterans' Memorial Auditorium, which tends to swallow the
sound on stage, undoubtedly didn't help matters. Renovations to the hall are under discussion, and I hope that in the near future
this orchestra will have a hall that highlights its colors rather than mutes them.
(Alexander Kahn is a Ph.D. candidate in Music History and Literature at UC Berkeley, where his research is focused on the Hollywood emigres. He is also the assistant conductor of the Oakland Civic and the UC Berkeley Symphony orchestras. )
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Jeffrey Kahane
