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SYMPHONY REVIEW
November 19, 2004
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By Jeff Rosenfeld
Sometimes a straight line is merely the quickest way from one point to another. In expansive pieces of music, it is often the only way to get somewhere, especially when traversing the dense underbrush of notes beloved of late-Romantic composers. Opening its 2004-2005 season on Friday, the Oakland East Bay Symphony showed that straight lines can be the most rewarding paths of all.
Case in point was the evening's highlight, a commanding performance of the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 3. Soloist Tian Ying opened the concerto with a suave and steady stroll through the opening theme, and he played with crisp assurance throughout, even when breaking into a run. The piece is well under Ying's fingers, and he played with the utmost discipline and evenness through the densest passages, with just a hint of rubato to punctuate a point here and there.
Ying wasn't cool or dispassionate, but rather lithe and athletic. The somewhat dry sound of the piano at the big Paramount Theater gave him little elbow room to soar above the orchestra. The sonics may also have diminished the eloquence Ying showed in the opening lament of the middle movement. Rather than overpower or seduce with sonority, Ying seemed content to fascinate us with clarity and deftness. This paid ample dividends in the march-like passages of the final movement, or in the delicately impish moments in the second movement.
Missing, however, was the ability to get the blood boiling. Where the first movement breaks into a Charleston-like romp, Ying and OEBS Music Director Michael Morgan couldn't really generate much energy; they hadn't built up to it enough. And in the electric transition from the slow movement to the finale, the performance unfortunately had to stop and start again due to a miscue. In all, the concerto performance was musical and fascinating, but it sustained little of the overarching line necessary to undulate properly with Rachmaninov's hills and dales. Ying and Morgan meandered through a disappointingly flat landscape with great interest but little perspective.
With the Brahms Symphony No. 1, Morgan and his orchestra embarked on a surefooted path through another titanic Romantic score. At first, Morgan seemed dedicated to a steady, urgent pulse. The orchestra responded with splendid vigor — a sustained energy that didn't let up even through the long exposition repeat opening the work. The controlled, soaring line of the second movement oboe solos was remarkable, as was the plush soliloquy by Co-Concertmaster Dawn Harms. The inevitability of the music seemed assured by Morgan's no-nonsense focus on rhythm, momentum, and deep sonority. Through thick and thin, phrase after phrase, the line was secure all the way to the beginning of the fourth movement. There, however, in the series of what should be shattering crescendos, the performance seemed to lose steam. The line never really recovered, and the tuneful finale proved oddly unimpressive. Dynamic contrasts weren't exploited; nuances of balance began to slip by unnoticed, and the energy and purity of the sound started to flag a bit. Choice moments — like the noble flute solo, the vivid warmth of the contrabassoon, and the solid trumpet playing — lingered in the mind but weren't enough to give the movement structure. In both of the big works, however, the orchestra generally was impressive, particularly with what seemed like a new-found strength in its lower strings. The Rachmaninov benefited in particular from the burnished violas, full-throated cellos, and rock-solid basses. The winds added to this beguiling bouquet of sound, like the perfectly ripened pairing of second clarinet and horn near the end of the second movement of the RachmaniNovember This dark, vocal quality to the sound had a lot to do with the intimacy of the concerto as well as the thrum of the first movement of the Brahms.
The orchestra briefly took on a brighter sound for the West Coast premiere of Big Bang, by San Francisco native Nathaniel Stookey. This trifling fanfare-like piece is delightful concoction of whimsical, gentle twists. In about five minutes, through fits and starts of melodic material spun out of simple two and three-note combinations, Stookey winds his way with leisure to a sonorous conclusion. The memorable moments include some charming, sputtering solos for trombone, a delectable beat for hand-tapped drums and, finally, an eerily pleasing peroration with antiphonal trumpets and 250 water-filled crystal glasses rubbed by the audience up in the balcony. I was sitting amidst this enthusiastic chorus, and I can attest to their superb sight-reading skills and richness of tone. I can also honestly say that if this was a “Big Bang,” then the universe is as laid-back as some West Coast mystics have insisted. I wasn't quite sure how Stookey got us from point A to point B, but in the fun of it all, I hardly cared.
(Jeff Rosenfeld is an oboist with the Kensington Symphony, West County Winds, and Pacific Wind Ensemble. He is a freelance science journalist and author of the recent book Eye of the Storm: Inside the World's Deadliest Hurricanes, Tornadoes, and Blizzards.)
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Tian Ying
Nathaniel Stookey