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CHAMBER ORCHESTRA REVIEW
Robin Sharp Jorge "Coco" Trivisonno Benjamin Simon
February 4, 2007
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Four Seasons in Argentina and Italy By Jonathan Russell
Although some might think it a bit overplayed, I have always been a fan of Vivaldi's violin suite The Four Seasons. It was an especially great pleasure, then, to witness the finest live performance of Winter and Spring that I have yet heard. It was given by soloist Robin Sharp and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra on Sunday at First Congregational Church in Berkeley. The program also included Astor Piazzolla's Four Seasons of Buenos Aires.
SFCO combined the clarity, precision, and buoyancy of "period performance" interpretation with a romantic heart and soul — a wonderfully winning combination. Winter began with icy repeated chords in the lower strings. Throughout, the orchestra provided a dazzling range of color and shadings, and the playing was always impeccably clean and absolutely together, not just in the sense of everyone arriving at the same place at the same time, but of being unified in dynamics, articulation, and even the most subtle nuances of expression. Sharp was both elegant and impassioned in her playing, in turn sweetly lyrical and dazzlingly virtuosic. As soon as the piece finished, all I wanted was to hear it performed again.
Spring, fittingly, is a warmer and sunnier piece, and the orchestra and soloist effectively captured this spirit, as well. In the second movement, the violins created a magical texture of soft, undulating chords, with an incredibly silky and delicate sound, like a hushed and distant choir. It provided a beautiful cushion of sound on which the soloist could float.
I have never heard violins sound so otherworldly, like something out of a dream. If any composers of a minimalist bent happen to be reading this, I urge them to make a two-hour-long piece with the texture of this section — only then might I feel I had gotten enough of it. In both Vivaldi selections, Music Director Benjamin Simon relinquished his baton to play in the viola section, which helped contribute to the intimate, chamber-musiclike feeling of the performances.
Piazzolla's four "seasons" of Buenos Aires are similarly colorful and evocative, though stylistically quite varied. The heart and soul of his music is the tango, his native Argentina's national dance. By mixing tango with influences from jazz and classical music, Piazzolla helped move this art form out of the slums and brothels and into jazz clubs and concert halls, eventually making it popular around the world. All four of Piazzolla's "seasons" featured bandoneon player Jorge "Coco" Trivisonno, who also arranged these works for himself, for guitar (played by José Rodriguez), and for string orchestra. The bandoneon, like an accordion but with buttons instead of a keyboard, was also Piazzolla's instrument and is one of the primary instruments of folk music in Argentina. Trivisonno, one of that country's most accomplished tango performers, clearly has supreme command of the style, blending propulsive energy with elegant, suave phrasing. His use of rubato was particularly compelling. Although he was reading music, he tossed off musical lines with a gentle push and pull that made it seem as if he were making it all up, right then and there. His solo encore (I didn't catch the title), which followed the last piece with orchestra, was like a lover whispering in your ear. Unfortunately for the orchestra, despite its own stylistic mastery of the Vivaldi, it seemed a bit out of touch with the style of tango, particularly when heard on the same evening as Trivisonno's masterful playing. While the ensemble performed with precision and gusto, its rendition was missing that rare and seductive combination of elegance and passion that came across so clearly in the arms of the bandoneonist.
You can hardly blame the orchestra. Any nonnative who has ever tried to learn to dance a tango or salsa or other South American dance knows that, no matter how perfectly you learn the steps, the soul of the dance lies in how you move your hips, how you hold yourself, in your whole posture and attitude. This is all extremely difficult to define, or to learn. The orchestra knew all the steps, but it would probably take years of immersion for it to capture the seductive, sophisticated swagger that emanated so effortlessly from Trivisonno's instrument. Still, because the orchestra was so stylistically compelling and at home in the Vivaldi pieces, I had formed a high standard to hold it to in the Piazzolla. Altogether, it was an invigorating and energizing concert, a worthy competitor for the Super Bowl, which was occurring simultaneously, and which, happily, did not prevent a large audience from hearing this fine performance. (Jonathan Russell is a professor of musicianship at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and an editor with PBA Music Publishing. He is active in the Bay Area as a clarinetist, bass clarinetist, and composer.)
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