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CHAMBER ORCHESTRA REVIEW
New Name, New Music
January 13, 2002
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By Jules Langert
The Pacific Chamber Orchestra, re-christened after some years as the Classical Philharmonic, began its new life, under Lawrence Kohl's direction, with a concert of music by four Bay Area composers. Of the six works on Sunday's program at Oakland's Holy Names College, Kurt Rohde's Strong Motion made the most vivid impression.
After an opening fanfare-like section for brass and woodwinds, a slower-moving melody began to take shape along with the thrust and counterthrust of succeeding episodes. About halfway through the 10-minute piece, this lyrical impulse came to the fore with a central role given to the bass clarinet, played expertly by Peter Josheff. Even here, the dramatic tension never dissipated, bursting out anew in the final section where several contending motives churning like ostinatos, drove the piece to its conclusion. Conductor Kohl led the orchestra convincingly through this dynamic work, drawing all its assembled forces into the orbit of Strong Motion.
Another piece with dramatic flair was Jake Heggie's Cut-Time: Variations for Piano and Chamber Orchestra. Stephen Prutsman was fluent and intense as the soloist, doing full justice to Heggie's showy, brilliant piano writing that owed many of its effects to the late 19th-century tradition of keyboard virtuosity. Though this piece was rife with spin-offs from Liszt, Rachmaninoff and Falla, it also had a well-developed sense of taste and an effective collaboration between piano and orchestra.
From its slow, atmospheric opening through the inventive treatment of numerous variations to the skillful, cadenza-like piano solo near the end, Cut-Time showed talent and imagination, shining through a sometime glitzy theatricality.
Only the finale was something of a let-down, its pop-style syncopation and quasi-jazz chords adding to the already eclectic mix of styles.
David Conte's Elegy for Matthew, for soprano and orchestra, is a setting of two poems by John Sterling Walker, written in memory of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man murdered in 1998. Julie Makerov sang poignantly, with feeling and in a strong, full soprano, but she was occasionally covered by Conte's full-throated orchestral writing. This work contains much that was affecting and convincing, but it also strove self-consciously towards a kind of hortatory grandiloquence. Also on the program, Jake Heggie's Three from Eve-Song, to poetry by Philip Littell, was sung alluringly by soprano Kristan Clayton. Though slighter in effect than his variations, the songs showed a naturalness and innate feel for vocal writing and text-setting. In this case, however, the emotional tone of music and verse remained resolutely and blandly on the surface of Eve's encounter with the serpent. Again, some pseudo-pop textures did little to enhance the snake's enticements. Gordon Getty's Three Pieces for String Orchestra, opening the concert, seemed like the work of a tunesmith, affectionately disposed to writing melodies, accompanying them with simple harmonies in a lightly ornamented style, then repeating them unchanged, without development or contrast. They resemble the folk song settings of Holst or Grainger but lack the harmonic, rhythmic and textural interest that can make their music so delightful.
The concert closed on Getty's Old Welsh Folk Songs for double choir and chamber orchestra. These were three traditional tunes with new English lyrics by the composer. Though there was genuine feeling in the arrangements, the freshness went out of the music as each stanza rolled by strophically, essentially unchanged. Even the playful, rambunctious second song, "Kind Old Man," wore thin from repetition before reaching its fourth verse. The Pacific Chamber Orchestra has some good players, and potentially it might fill an important place in the Bay Area's music scene. Though there was some tentativeness in its first program of the season, conductor Kohl and the ensemble gave a good account of some often tricky new music composed in a variety of styles and employing several different instrumental and vocal combinations. (Jules Langert is a composer and teacher who resides in the East Bay.) ©2002 Jules Langert, all rights reserved |