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CHAMBER MUSIC REVIEW
May 26, 2005
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By Heuwell Tircuit
A premiere, a local premiere and a major Mozart work featured on the New Century Chamber Orchestra's concert last Thursday at the Legion of Honor. The evening opened with the premiere of Ellis Schuman's Night Song for violin and chamber strings, followed by a new septet version of Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen (the original is for 23 solo strings) and, after intermission, Mozart's massive Divertimento No. 17 in D Major, K. 334/320b, for strings and horns, minus the optional March, K. 320c.
Metamorphosen, completed in 1945, was commissioned by the Zurich Collegium Musicum, and premiered the following January. It's doubtful that Zurich counted on the outcome, a distinctly bleak work of mourning. Strauss was in a bad way financially after the war, his health less than great and the devastation of the Europe he'd known weighing heavily on him — especially the destruction of Munich's opera house, where his father had been first horn for 49 years.
The work is full of allusive references to other works and historical events, most obviously the funeral march from Beethoven's “Eroica” Symphony. But if you are into the spot-that-tune mode, Strauss' puzzle includes references to Beethoven's last Quartet — the “Must it be?” opening motive of the finale — and to Wagner's betrayed King Marke in Tristan und Isolde. If you're after a gold star for identification, there's also a snippet from the last opera Strauss completed before the rise of Adolf Hitler, Arabella. By an ironic accident, the score was delivered to Zurich on April 12, 1945, the same day as the death of President Roosevelt.
The Strauss was very well played, rich in texture within the warm acoustics of the Florence Gould Theater. But it is difficult to pinpoint just what Rudolf Leopold's reduced version represents. It is said to be drawn from Strauss' original short-score sketches, perhaps influenced by the 1947 fragment Strauss left, marked “Letzte Metamorphosen” (Last Metamorphosen?) — I can't say. Yet the score proved surprisingly effective in Leopold's version for two each of violins, violas, cellos and a string bass. Even so, the standard version for string orchestra remains superior, and the larger the string section the better. (Conductors rarely limit themselves to only 23 players.) Violinist Krista Bennion Feeney, the orchestra's concertmaster and music director, was soloist in Schuman's nine-minute Night Song, again a somber piece. It's set in a basic ABA format, the second segment being mostly a none-too-flashy cadenza for the soloist. Completed in 2001 and dedicate to Feeney, the music takes its title from a passage in Psalm 12. It's a little surprising that Night Song had to wait so long for a premiere. Pleasant enough in its mildly contrapuntal style and basically tonal manner, the piece was flawed in the score's rather static stance. Materials did not seem to unfold, so that the music lacked much feeling of forward momentum, and it ended oddly, abruptly. In fact, it didn't really “end” at all; it just stopped. A little revision could fix those problems. There were also minor intonation problems during the performance, which did not help the final effect.
No such technical problem appeared in the devilishly difficult Mozart Divertimento. It's one of a few super Mozart Divertimenti for the same combination of instruments, the best of the others being No. 15 in B-flat Major, K287 — made most famous by George Balanchine's ballet setting. That one and this might almost collectively be retitled “The Art of Divertimento.” The six movements of K. 334 run a bit over 40 minutes, depending on how conscientious one is about taking the repeats. The movements include the most extreme variety of moods. They can be giddy one moment, and as serious as anything in Mozart the next. For a piece ostensibly dedicated to light entertainment, the score can be unexpectedly darkened through the use of minor keys. The second movement, for instance, is a set of variations in D minor, greatly at odds with the two lively Minuets. Yet it all holds together as a solid piece of musical architecture. It's tough music to play for all concerned. The first violin part is a technical challenge even for a virtuoso, far more demanding than anything in Mozart's violin concertos. Feeney seemed the revel in this, showing no hint of strain as she breezed through tricky moments. Tempo selection can also be tricky, and here the New Century group were superb, as perfect as I have heard. Indeed, this was largely a triumph.
On the other hand, the New Century chose to play the Divertimento one on a part. I know it's the current fashion, but this is a concept fraught with danger. First of all, balancing two French horns again two violins, a viola, and a bass is almost surely going to end up with the two brass instruments drowning out the strings (on modern instruments at least). The first fanfare blast of horns last Thursday, for instance, didn't sound as if the two horns were quite fully house-broken. This, after all, isn't the Tchaikovsky Fourth. The musicians brought that under control as the piece moved along, but balances remained dicey at best. New Century's next concerts around assorted Bay Area locations are set for next week, June 2-4, with a program offering music of Mozart, Britten, Takemitsu and Czech Romantic Josef Suk.
(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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Krista Bennion Feeney
