San Francisco Classical Voice

Harada included some fascinating historical choices in his program, with the clear and sensitive piano accompaniment of Hiroko Sakurazawa. First came the American premiere of four unpublished works by Messiaen. Two were lovely but clearly early works, wearing the influence of Debussy quite openly, the other two more individual in their birdsong-influenced splendor. Exploring French music of the ‘30s, Harada found the instrument's most vocal and melismatic sound for André Jolivet's Trois Poèmes, music with this composer's typically craggy, searching expressiveness. It was also nice to hear music by one of our great local composers, Darius Milhaud, his 1932 Suite for the Ondes and Piano. Harada's instrument was the sweet lead voice of the duo in the arching lines of the Chorale and Elégie and the rhythmically inventive utterances of the fast movements, all over Milhaud's tangy harmonies.

Harada's own Poisson d'or was a beautiful opener for the concert, as he drew a pure, shakuhachi-like tone from the instrument for slow, simple lines, exerting slight but precise control of the instrument's dynamics and vibrato. He found a broader palette for Shin-Ichiro Ikebe's Thermal Conductivity (1995), a solo tour-de-force. Here Harada produced sweeping glissandi of the Lost in Space variety, a distant, strummed-harp sound, flute-like arabesques, and a thick, tuba-like sound that recalled the synthesizers of the ‘60s, in a kaleidoscopic but musically coherent display.

Lou Harrison was honored by the festival for his upcoming 85th birthday, and received a tribute from one of his finest interpreters, guitarist David Tanenbaum. Tanenbaum began with four short solo works written between 1952 and 1977, in which Harrison was well served by the guitarist's typically straightforward and tasteful playing. Arranged as a suite, the pieces all have a folk-like simplicity and a plainspoken, unapologetic beauty, even as they display Harrison's immaculate sense of proportion and craft.

The pieces often relied on single lines on the guitar, and so fluent and expressive is Harrison's writing that this alone was transporting. I can't think of another modern composer who uses monody so effectively, so much so that the appearance of harmony or even a switch to octaves can have a profound effect.

Next came Scenes from Nek Chand, a new work in three movements for National steel guitar. This steel-topped instrument, familiar from old-time country music and blues, provided a very different world of sound for an homage to the Hawaiian guitar music Harrison heard as a child. The opening movement began with Tanenbaum using a slide on the strings, exploiting this instrument's special, rich resonance and evoking the sweet loneliness of the steel guitar's more customary genres. The music was spare and dignified, very slow and stately, and Tanenbaum gave the music room to breathe and develop. Movements II and III grew more intense, as the work ended with florid modal writing over bass drones. Harrison's language here was familiar from earlier pieces, and he was clearly enjoying his own mastery in adding another fine work to his catalog.

Other Minds often attempts to introduce composers unknown in these parts, and this year's edition brings Brazil's Ricardo Tacuchian. He's very much in the lineage of Villa-Lobos, an impression reinforced by the colorful, parallel-moving harmonies and melodic patterns repeated over shifting backdrops, not to mention the fact that the festival programmed his music for guitars in solo, duo and quartet configurations. Most exciting was Imagem Carioca, performed by the Mexican Guitar Quartet, all Tanenbaum students. Layering pulsing rhythmic patterns and adding percussive effects, Tacuchian shifted proportions and layers, regenerating new levels of tension as the piece moved along. There were no great revelations here, just some well-made and personal music.

Pauline Oliveros, also honored for her 70th birthday, ended the evening with an improvisation by her Circle Trio, with violinist India Cooke and vocalist Karolyn Van Putten. Oliveros created a meditative setting as she began by opening and closing her accordion, first without pitch then with the sparest figures, fomenting a gradual emergence of the trio's sound possibilities. Plenty of close listening and interaction was apparent over the next twenty or so minutes, but as is often true with free improv, this was more involving for the players than for the audience, at least for this listener.

Given the nearly three-hour length of the concert, it wouldn't hurt to add a fourth night to the festival. Maybe Other Minds' increasing focus on historical innovations could have a night of its own. The sprawling quality of the programs each year can be inviting, and didn't seem to bother the faithful, but a clearer focus could help to frame the guest composers' achievements more powerfully.

(Benjamin Frandzel is a Bay Area musician and writer. In addition to writing concert music, he has collaborated with dance, theater, and visual artists, and has written about music for many publications and musical organizations. He is currently a graduate student in composition at San Francisco State University.)

©2002 Benjamin Frandzel, all rights reserved