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SYMPHONY REVIEW
May 2, 2004
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By Jeff Dunn
Veteran music lovers should search for at least three somethings at every
concert: something new, something extraordinary, something exciting. The
fun part is not knowing where they will occur in the program. In the Marin Symphony's season-ending set (heard 5/2), the three
desiderata didn't always show up where they might be expected to.
One would think, for example, that a world premiere, Kevin Puts' Vespertine Symphonies,
would easily provide the something new. Music Director Alasdair Neale even
provided a spoken introduction on the rarity of a world premiere at the
venue, unfortunately not illustrated by played excerpts. But was the music
new? Not quite. What was presented was more an employment application for a
Hollywood movie-scorer than a stand-alone composition; a series of
incidents, expertly orchestrated in quasi-Ravelian fashion, but not always
well transitioned.
The title comes from the alternative rock album of the
Icelandic phenomenon Björk. Opening lines of three songs (“Hidden Place,”
Heirloom,” and “Undo”) provide titles for three short movements. The first,
“Through the warmthest cord,” sported a short but attractive cello solo
performed on Sunday by Jan Volkert. Ascending phrases of aspiring strings, in the style
of the Finnish composer Einojuhanni Rautavaara's “Angels” series, form a
motto that returns in the last movement, “It's not meant to be a strife.”
The return was a strife, however, for intonation failed on the very high
string unisons. The light central movement, “I have a recurrent dream,”
brought forth the sprite of Holst's “Mercury.”
The work evokes much of the dreamy, schizoid, oxymoronic poetry of Björk,
except its originality. What is provided by the right hand of generally deft
orchestration (except for far too much harp and celeste) is taken away by
the left hand of derivativeness and inconclusivity. The first two Björk
stanzas may ironically reflect Puts' dilemma:
Through the warmthest
I'm not sure
So nothing new yet. But something extraordinary came before intermission with Jon Nakamatsu's rendition of the Schumann piano concerto. This all-too-familiar housepet was presented with unusual elegance, sensitivity, maturity, and concluding panache. No heads nodded and many patrons took to their feet to recognize Nakamatsu's achievement. The critic's only cavil was with the composer: why is that third movement so long? A big turnaround in the string department provided the second something in Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 after intermission. This was the tremendously exciting, headlong yet accurate violin outbursts of the Allegro con fuoco finale. It was clear that Neale had spent considerable time honing the performance toward perfection. The scherzo was a gem, and the andantino a broadly paced, yet balletic canzona. Hats off! And near the end, something new! The sudden realization that the striking concluding theme to the exposition of the first movement was appropriated by Andrew Lloyd Webber for the title song in “Jesus Christ Superstar.” This listener had long known how Lloyd Webber had pillaged Puccini. Now Tchaikovsky could be added to the inventory list of stolen goods. Three Somethings achieved. Time to go home happy.
(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 ofNACUSA and is a Bay Area correspondent for the journal 21st-Century Music.)
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Kevin Puts
Jon Nakamatsu