San Francisco Classical Voice

There's basic reason why certain composers and pieces have achieved acclaim. They just sound better. This notion was driven home in fine performances by the New Century Chamber Orchestra on Thursday at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, in a program entitled "An American Century."

Far from saving the best for last, the ensemble immediately offered Charles Ives' The Unanswered Question (1906), in a breathtaking rendition for string quintet, trumpet, and four flutes. While Ives calls for the three instrumental forces to be spatially separate, placement of the groups in performances over the past 30 years has Been varied. Here the strings were not offstage, but behind the audience's right, up in the choir loft in the back of the church. Trumpeter Chris Gekker was opposite the strings, on the left balcony. Only the four flutists were left on stage.

The work is often performed utilizing an entire string orchestra, so it was an interesting choice to reduce the core ensemble to five players when larger forces were clearly available. Ives also offers a version with mixed winds rather than four flutes. But in this performance, the clarity and purity of the performing forces made a good argument for the reduced and simple timbres.

Lusher, richer tones came to play in Quiet City for Trumpet, English Horn, and Orchestra (1940) by Aaron Copland. This is a hushed, iridescent world where nothing much happens. But the beauteous stasis of English horn player Andrea Plesnarski and the full complement of New Century strings allowed for contemplative reveling. Only the inevitably edgier presence of the trumpet called forth the urban side of the equation.

Arthur Foote's Suite in E Major for String Orchestra, written one year after the Ives in chronology, is almost a half-century earlier in content. Foote, who had one foot in the 19th century and the other in the 20th, is accused by some of flat-footedness but is thought by others to be underappreciated. The truth lies somewhere in between.

The suite is a solidly constructed romantic work with cleverly interrelating motives (descending pattern of major third and half-step in the first movement is inverted to become an ascending major third and half-step in the last) and a mismatched set of subsections: Praeludium (a genre), Pizzicato and Adagietto (a performance style and a tempo), and Fugue (a form). The Pizzicato is worthy of Tchaikovsky on an off day, and the Fugue has a commanding sweep that was not marred by occasional rhythmic disparities.

The most recent work on the program, Thea Musgrave's Orfeo II (1975), is not particularly current or particularly American (the composer is of Scottish birth and writes of Greek mythology as interpreted by Italian and German sensibilities). Like many pieces of the last 40 years, this work mines the past, but in a vein that was never particularly rich even in its day: Christoph Willibald Gluck's Orfeo (oh, for a turn at Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo or even Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld!). In utilizing preexistent musical material, a composer must have a fresh enough organizational approach (Ives) and/or a strong enough melodic sensibility (Copland) not to be eclipsed by the past. Musgrave's efforts were persuasively argued by flute soloist Julie McKenzie and the ensemble. The program closed with a charming little encore by composer-philanthropist Gordon Getty.

After eight years, the New Century Chamber Orchestra continues to provide first-rate performances of a varied repertory. Perhaps next year they will take their name to heart and offer newer works for a new century.

(Mark Alburger is Editor-Publisher of 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC Journal, and an award-winning ASCAP composer published by New Music.)

©2000 Mark Alburger, all rights reserved