San Francisco Classical Voice

George Perle, the noted New York composer who once taught at UC Davis and later served as the San Francisco Symphony's composer-in-residence, returned for a birthday present Monday night. In lieu of 85 candles, he accepted a much-deserved standing ovation from a devoted audience at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and more important, excellent performances of his music.

Perle had been on hand earlier in the week to assist in preparing the program, and it showed. The students and professionals the conservatory assembled for the event played his music with sure insight. It was particularly heartening to hear younger students playing challenging contemporary repertory with such authority and conviction.

The concert began with its largest ensemble, for Perle's Serenade No. 3 for piano and chamber ensemble (1983). The piano was joined by flute, oboe, clarinet, soprano and alto saxophone, bassoon, horn, trumpet, percussion, violin, and cello, all under Nicole Paiement's typically energetic conducting. This miniature orchestra is ideal for Perle's instrumental approach, in which imaginative tone colors rapidly form and dissolve. The changes in color are linked to repetition and development, with new instrumental appearances serving as ideal launching pads for motivic evolution.

The work's rapid exchanges between instruments, its wit and continuous energy brought to mind Perle's New York origins The piece often took on the character of an urbane, rapid-fire, indeed fascinating conversation. The composer's deft handling of the large ensemble was a perfect illustration of his skill as an orchestrator as well as his ability to communicate complex ideas with utter clarity.

Closing the first half, the Sonata for Cello and Piano, which borrows a theme from the Serenade for its third movement, is another work of great invention and skill. Its four movements traverse a musical landscape that is alternately restrained and passionate, busy, then austere, often changing at a moment's notice. This work typifies Perle's delight in the possibilities and inherent properties of music itself, as he examines and rethinks his use of rhythm, texture, timbre, and instrumental character with endless enthusiasm.

Cellist Emil Miland offered an exuberant and emotionally rich performance, adjusting to the work's rapid changes with great command and energy. Pianist Leesa Dahl, featured in this work as well as in the Serenade, is a musician to watch. A conservatory graduate student, she brought intelligence, sensitivity, and a lovely touch to Perle's music. An ability to invoke lyricism as well as rhythmic vitality was crucial to putting this music across, and both she and Miland succeeded admirably.

In his chamber writing, Perle often gives equal weight to each instrument, an ideal approach for the string quartet. The West Coast premiere of his Brief Encounters (String Quartet No. 9), from 1999, revealed his mastery of this instrumental idiom as well as his undiminished creativity. Getting its title from its construction in 15 short movements, the piece again draws attention to Perle's motivic approach. All four instruments enter sequentially, not exactly imitatively, but in a shared exploration of the same material. Perle sets in motion an intense interplay among the four voices, finding new combinations and timbres in the ensemble, and changing roles for each member over the length of this substantial work.

The Mithras Quartet, a student ensemble, offered a focused, convincing performance, full of both nuance and gravity. Perle's knotty instrumental conversations were brought out with fine balance and clarity. And when the texture switched to a lead voice over a supporting ensemble, these roles were delineated with the same attention and musicality.

Perle is obviously concerned with idiomatic instrumental writing, as was clear in his Three Inventions for Solo Bassoon, from 1963, the program's oldest work. San Francisco Symphony member and conservatory faculty member Steven Dibner performed with great aplomb. He was particularly adept at bringing out the counterpoint among lines in the instrument's different registers. Appropriately lyrical in upper-register passages and bringing great momentum to extended runs, he gave an electrifying account of the third invention's rapid repeated notes and staccato playing.

The latter work's final, accented burst also brought out some of the humor that seems to be a requisite for this instrument. But Perle wisely avoided overdoing that aspect of the music. Instead, in typical fashion, he devoted his work to exploring the instrument's many technical possibilities and modes of expression, the kind of explorations that make his work so notable.

(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.)

©2000 Benjamin Frandzel, all rights reserved