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CHAMBER MUSIC REVIEW
May 28, 2004
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By Eric Valliere
The New Century Chamber Orchestra's season now includes a chamber music sub-series, an excellent opportunity for several first-rate players from the larger ensemble to showcase their skills in this intimate repertoire. For their concert at the Florence Gould Theater in San Francisco Friday evening, the NCCO strings were joined by several wind players — most notably clarinetist Charles Neidich — for music of Alan Shulman, Osvaldo Golijov, and Schubert. (For what it's worth, they were also joined by hundreds of partying art-and-martini-lovers in the galleries that cocoon the hall, whose revels frequently seeped in to mar the first half's quieter moments.)
The Octet in F Major for Strings and Winds, op. 166 (1824) cannot be called one of Schubert's masterpieces. It is best to remember, when hearing this very long work (this performance clocked in at nearly 70 minutes), that it was intended for “use” by Count Ferdinand Troyer, who commissioned the piece as an homage to the Divertimenti of Beethoven and Mozart. Divertimenti of course, like Baroque suites before them and the Romantic serenades that would follow, were most often heard at garden parties, court functions, and the like. They were quite literally meant to pass the time, something at which Schubert excelled.
The Octet is not without its charms, however. The second movement Adagio is the work's emotional heart, beginning with an exquisite duet between the clarinet and first violin. With seamless polish, Neidich and violinist Krista Bennion Feeney let the warm wisps of the melody slowly unfurl as if on one impossibly long breath. The Allegro Vivace third movement inspired some of the best and most nuanced ensemble playing of the evening, running up to a series of jagged musical precipices without forgetting to smell the flowers and fresh air along the way. In fact, my only quibble with the performance would be one of balance: Dennis Goldburn's elegant bassoon sound – heard periodically in brief solos – was for the most part too self-effacing, often to the point of inaudibility (although partial fault for this might lie with the hall's strange acoustics). Eric Achen was an admirable horn presence, clear and round (although his sharp tonic in the bass rather unseated the final chord of the Andante).
Neidich also joined an NCCO string quartet for Alan Shulman's Rendezvous for Clarinet and Strings (1946). The one-movement piece is subtitled Rendezvous with Benny, and indeed was written with Goodman in mind. While it doesn't come near to exploiting the range and character of which Goodman's clarinet was capable, Shulman's quintet gives the soloist plenty of very satisfying licks, which Neidich delivered with dramatic flair. The work's musical content is at times inscrutable, alternately adopting Debussy's harmonies, Gershwin's rhythms, even Berg's sinewy lines. The NCCO strings had no difficulty negotiating this stylistic minefield, and managed to pull the piece off with considerable panache. NCCO provided nine strings for Golijov's Last Round (1996). This is a gorgeous and entertaining piece that, like much of Golijov's music, relies on a formula of additive South American rhythmic syncopations and Latin harmonic inflections, building urgently toward a climax. The first movement's musical engine, after a rather fitful start, thrums along smoothly, its inner pistons working steadily and well. But the rubber never quite hits the road, and we're left feeling just a little gypped. In the second movement, “Muertes Del Angel”, Golijov allows for a less mechanistic exploration of real emotion, of which Robin Bonnell's cello solo was the pitch-perfect centerpiece.
(Eric Valliere completed his doctorate in composition from New England Conservatory in Boston, where he was also on the Musicology faculty. Currently, Eric serves as Executive Director for Volti (www.voltisf.org) and the Noe Valley Chamber Music Series (www.nvcm.org), and as Managing Director of the BluePrint Contemporary Music Project (at the SF Conservatory). His critical writings have also appeared on www.classicstoday.com and he is a frequent contributor to www.andante.com.)
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Alan Shulman
Osvaldo Golijov
Charles Neidich