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SYMPHONY REVIEW Unanswered Questions November 13, 2002
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By Jeff Dunn
The San Francisco Symphony under guest conductor David Zinman provided a wonder-ful program last week, every piece giving rise to wonder.
I wonder why Christopher Rouse still hasn't got the recognition he deserves. This man is a phenomenal composer, but compared to the likes of John Adams, Philip Glass, Steve Reich or Elliott Carter, he hardly gets any press coverage. Yet Rapture, premiered only two years ago, has already received 32 performances by 18 different orchestras. This is not an ordinary occurrence in contemporary music! The piece has everything going for it. It is relatively short, highly dramatic, and, as Rouse put it, "the most unabashedly tonal music I have composed. I wished to depict a progression to an ever more blinding ecstasy." And thus it went, a tour-de-force of ochestration that heated up the audience into a flurry of bravos at the conclusion. Although the execution as a whole sounded somewhat underrehearsed, the percussion section, a key element for any Rouse composition, performed admirably. It is frankly about time the Symphony played more Rouse, either his masterpiece Violin concerto or the juggernaut Gorgon.
I wonder what the Brahms Double concerto would have sounded like had I closed my eyes. I expect pretty fair, but the visuals were too much. On the left was violinist Kyoko Takezawa in a stunning blood-red form-fitting dress, swinging her violin back and forth by the neck from time to time in a karate stance when she wasn't playing, then wringing every ounce out of the music when she was. On the right was the more modest cellist Han-Na Chang, swooning to the music with her mouth wide open. In the first movement, the combination of Zinman's stern interpretation and Takezawa's take-no-prisoners intensity made for a thrilling performance. The second and third movements, more mellow, would have benefited from a sweeter tone but were worthy of praise.
I wonder why the San Francisco Symphony has not played Strauss's Don Juan since 1990, while warhorses like the Mendelssohn violin concerto can show up twice a season. Few commentators today would claim Strauss wrote better purely orchestral music than this brilliant charmer. Fortunately, Zinman and the orchestra rose to the occasion with a sterling performance. There were no ragged entrances, the pacing was swift and cinematic, dynamics were maximized. It was the highlight of the evening. I wonder if anyone who knows Der Rosenkavalier the opera can listen to one of the extracted suites without experiencing that empty-stomach, "where-ARE-the-voices?" feeling. The suite should not be banned from the concert hall like Wagner in Israel, because some poor souls who really can't take the sound of the human voice should be exposed to expanded repertoire from time to time. But why play the Trio, one of the most glorious effusions in all music, as a shadow of its potential? If one must play music from this opera without singing, one should stick to the waltz sequences, preferably the first. In the opera, the waltzes have a secondary role. No one actually dances them. They accompany often loosely related arioso and recitativ and therefore, because they are such fabulous music in themselves, benefit from being brought to the fore as an extract. Not so the Trio, tenor aria and closing duet. All that being said, Zinman did a fine job and should be commended on directing a stimulating program. Will wondering never cease? I hope not.
(Jeff Dunn is a freelance critic with a B.A. in music and a Ph.D. inGeologic Education. A composer of piano and vocal music, he is a member ofNACUSA and is a Bay Area correspondent for the journal 21st-Century Music.)
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Han-Na Chang
Kyoko Takezawa