|
CONTEMPORARY MUSIC REVIEW
Second 80th Birthday Tribute to Andrew Imbrie
April 9, 2001
|
By Ross Bauer
The first of a second pair of tribute concerts to the dean of Bay Area composers, Andrew Imbrie, at the San Francisco Conservatory's Hellman Hall last Monday, was quite an enjoyable affair. A substantial and varied program, featuring two works by Imbrie as well as eight shorter works (including five world premieres) written in tribute to him on his 80th birthday by former students, colleagues, and admirers, was performed by a winning combination of conservatory students and old pros. Many thanks go to UC Santa Cruz composer Hi-Kyung Kim for conceiving and organizing these events.
Amidst a dense thicket of literally thousands of notes, it was Imbrie's music that stood out. His work is instantly identifiable and could have been written by no one else. The program was well paced, if a bit overlong, beginning with Imbrie's heartfelt Reminiscence for solo guitar, dedicated to the memory of his son John, compellingly played by conservatory faculty member Marc Teicholz. The concert ended, some 2½ hours later, with a knockout performance of Imbrie's Spring Fever featuring conservatory students led by conservatory and UC Santa Cruz faculty conductor Nicole Paiement. In between these Imbrie bookends, however, the fare was considerably more mixed.
Standing out among the tribute works was Mario Davidovsky's RecitAndy for cello solo, gorgeously played by Bonnie Hampton. Full of content and feeling, this brief work was coherent and extraordinarily gripping. I was able to follow the musical argument on first hearing but wanted to hear it again in order to appreciate it on a deeper level. Hampton effectively brought out the drama and expression of the work, her somewhat understated performance in keeping with its somber tone. Robert Helps contributed Postcards, two charmingly contrasting character pieces for solo piano, both played convincingly by longtime conservatory faculty member Mac McCray. The first piece, titled "San Francisco in the Fall," had the piano in its upper register throughout in dense, contrapuntally interwoven lines. The second piece, "Friday Night in Greenwich Village," was a much faster and sprightlier, jazz-inflected bonbon. Wayne Peterson's short and eventful Inscape, for flute, clarinet, and percussion, was gamely played by conservatory students conducted by Paiement. It had a convincing shape and its proportions were right, but it would have benefited from a more secure rendition. In particular, clarinetist Roman Fukshansky could have improved his control over the demanding bass clarinet writing featured in the middle and toward the end of the piece.
A Sly Birthday Gift for Bass Clarinet Hi-Kyung Kim's Orange Pastel, forcefully played by professional percussionists Don Baker and David Carlisle, consisted of a series of dialogs between the two players on like instruments — first woodblocks, then marimbas, then bongos and tom-toms, and finally woodblocks again. This short work had an appealingly ritualistic, ceremonial quality. Korean composer Sung-Jae Lee was represented by Dalha Dalha, an intriguing piece for solo bass clarinet that, at its end, turned out to have been based on the venerable "Happy Birthday to You." It was well played by John Sackett. Less effective were Alden Jencks' sprawling and incoherent Postcard to Johann for two pianists, John Harbison's rather thin Chaconne for Pierrot ensemble (piano, flute, clarinet, violin, and cello), and William O. Smith's overly long and diffuse Ottanta for clarinet and cello. This last, beautifully played by conservatory faculty cellist Jean-Michel Fonteneau and Sackett, had some wonderful moments, however. Most notable among them were the cello's long, expressive line in artificial harmonics supported by pointillistic clarinet and, later, a striking clarinet passage in multiphonics consisting of a low tremolo and an upper-register note over a long, sustained note on the cello's open D string.
The high point of the evening was the spirited west coast premiere of Imbrie's Spring Fever (1996) for 10 players. This substantial three-movement piece shows the composer at his most playful and unbuttoned, particularly in the jazzy third movement. A lively, wide-ranging, and syncopated first movement leads into a more expressive second movement featuring very effective string passages in four-part harmony as well as an explosive piano solo, played by Leesa Dahl with great force. The finale, beginning with another piano solo, soon highlights other soloists and subensembles. Most notable among these passages is a bass solo, at first accompanied by the percussionist on the hi-hat cymbals, then on the tom-toms, and finally joined by pizzicato strings. The entire piece bursts with invention and good humor. The performance of Spring Fever was outstanding, the young conservatory musicians playing with both pinpoint accuracy and great enthusiasm under the precise and informed leadership of Paiement. While all of the young players distinguished themselves, particular standouts were Dahl, who dispatched the demanding piano solos with great aplomb, bassist Stan Poplin, and, especially, cellist Dana Putnam, who, in addition to her beautifully full tone and impeccable intonation, displayed musicianship and poise rare even in much more experienced cellists. Composers, musicians, and listeners admire Imbrie not only for the quality and consistency of his work, but for his adventurous compositional attitude (he's not afraid to stretch his own boundaries) as well as his steadfastly optimistic outlook. Works like Spring Fever and the newer Piano Quartet (performed recently at UC Berkeley and UC Davis on the first pair of these tribute concerts) show us a highly individual composer in the prime of his life at 80. He's not getting older, only better! (Ross Bauer teaches composition and theory and is Chair of the Music Department at the University of California, Davis. He will be composer in residence at the Wellesley Composers Conference this summer.) ©2001 Ross Bauer, all rights reserved |