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CHAMBER MUSIC REVIEW
November 18, 2004
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By Heuwell Tircuit
Two Russian works and one bland Russian parody were featured on last Thursday's program of the New Century Chamber Orchestra at the Legion of Honor. As usual with this group, the performances were top-notch most of the time, but a tad lax when the music wasn't up to snuff. In the latter category, the evening opened with John Tavener's The Hidden Treasure (1989) for string quartet. But then we heard the Anton Arensky's wonderful Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 35 (1894), and, following intermission, Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence, Op.70 (1891) for string sextet.
Arensky's Tchaikovsky memorial piece is possibly his most frequently programmed work, although the scoring for violin, viola and two cellos is most unusual. It's beautifully put together: technically strong, rewardingly melodic, harmonized with imagination and yet restrained in an almost Brahmsian mode. The second of its three movements became famous in Arensky's arrangement for string orchestra, renamed Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky — a work which used to be standard repertory.
There are composers of every period in every culture who fade away, usually excused with that nonsense about “standing the test of time.” (How can unplayed music be said to have been tested?) Arensky is one such, standing in the wings awaiting rediscovery as a significant member of the late Russian Romantics.
Splendid performances by violinist Karen Sor Shinozaki, violist Linda Ghidossi-DeLuca plus cellists Jeff Watson and Robin Bonnell made a strong case for Arensky's little masterpiece. All the technical aspects of the players were totally accurate, but more than that, their sensibility to elegant style left nothing to be improved. I don't know what more one could ask.
The Tchaikovsky also went along merrily, as played by violinist Krista Bennion Feeney and Shinozaki, violists Ghidossi-DeLuca and Casandra Lynne Richburg, plus cellists Watson and Bennet. There were little spots where minor intonation slips were allowed in for the shake of sheer bravura, but the effective glitter of the playing more than compensated for those minor and infrequent blemishes. Englishman Tavener has a following, especially in the choral field. His quasi-liturgical works in antique style are frequently colored by music of Near Eastern modality, most often of a Greek Orthodox sort. Alas, Alan Hovhaness already mined that vein to extinction, and was far better while doing so. Tavener's lack of melodic invention, however, was startling in The Hidden Treasure — unless, of course, he meant the hidden treasure to imply inspiration. What one heard proven to be a dank, 25-minute lump of slow running-in-place while waiting for Saint Cecilia to show up. Even the performers seemed disheartened by their assignments, slipping into unexpectedly sloven playing. I'm sympathetic to that.
(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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John Tavener