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SYMPHONY REVIEW
December 5, 2003
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By George Thomson
Of all the things that made Igor Stravinsky a great and unique composer, one of the most important must have been his uncanny adeptness at what we nowadays call "spin" — his fantastic capacity for re-invention and re-interpretation, be it compositional, philosophical, or even biographical. Listening to his music often involves an encounter with something familiar yet askew; the magic is in his making you as interested in the skew as in anything else. And while he always tried to present a picture of ideological consistency (often retrospectively) in his writings and pronouncements, he was as deft at manipulating inconvenient facts and circumstances as he was with rhythms or harmonies. In their concert of last Friday evening, the San Francisco Symphony and Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas presented an all-Stravinsky evening that positively gyrated with the master's special spin. There was more spin than center, perhaps, leaving the listener just a bit dizzy.
The three works on the program included some of Stravinsky's most thorough re-imaginings, of his own work and those of others. First were the Four Etudes for Orchestra, orchestrations of his Three Pieces for String Quartet of 1914 along with the Etude for Pianola of 1917. Stravinsky apparently thought of orchestrating the quartet pieces not long after their composition, and it is little wonder; in their original form they are exceptionally austere. The first is a tiny scrap of Rite-of-Spring wallpaper with four repeating design elements; the second is a brief study in Petrouchka-esque clowning; and the third is a somber chorale looking forward to the remarkable ending of the Symphonies of Wind Instruments.
It is worth remembering that Stravinsky's first paying job for Diaghilev at the Ballets Russes, even before writing The Firebird, was as an orchestrator only (some pieces by Grieg and Chopin), and he was an ingenious one. That goes double for his own material: these first three Etudes sound as if conceived in their orchestral garb, sparse as it sometimes is. Thus they make something of a contrast with the fourth, "Madrid," which is full of bright sunny colors befitting its Iberian flavor (familiar to listeners, if only in caricature, from the Royal March of The Soldier's Tale). Tilson Thomas and the orchestra gave these pieces an appropriately brisk and unsentimental reading.
The older Stravinsky, the Stravinsky of the Conversations books, would no doubt have approved; by then he was quite concerned to give most of his past work a shiny, modernist chrome-and-steel finish. Not so difficult for these short pieces, but a bit more of an ideological stretch for a work like his ballet "after Tchaikovsky," The Fairy's Kiss, of 1928. Yes, in this work, Stravinsky takes melodies and passages from lesser-known works of Tchaikovsky and puts them through his metrical spin cycle, but the extent to which he transforms this material is less remarkable than the extent he conforms himself to it. It is a full-length fairy-tale ballet in the best Sleeping Beauty tradition, and even the most modernist critical gloss cannot entirely obscure the traces of Stravinsky's heart on his sleeve here. Tchaikovsky represented very particular things to Stravinsky in the 20s, including a "Russian-ness" that had not gone all Bolshevik (think Mosolov's Iron Foundry, or Prokofiev's Pas d'acier — it was a fad Diaghilev was keen to exploit) and that owed little to the Rimsky-Korsakov tradition (the heirs to which, like Steinberg and Glazunov, thought Stravinsky a bit of a dim bulb back in their school days). No heavy machinery here, nor the huge percussion battery of the post-Rimsky-Korsakov orchestra (not even a tambourine!). Instead there are the sumptuous string textures, the gossamer wind writing, and the rustic horns of Tchaikovsky — all the trappings right down to the harp and the cello solo in the Pas de Deux. To be fair, Stravinsky does colorize his model somewhat; underneath those horns in the rustic "Danses Suisses" is a subtly thumping bass drum, for example, and he even out-sentimentalizes Tchaikovsky by giving lyrical solos to the trombone. But there is an interpretive quandary here: how "straight" do you play it? Tongue-in-cheek, or, um . . . elsewhere? Stravinsky helped out here by making a subsequent arrangement of four sections of the ballet, leaving out the problematically sentimental climax and apotheosis, calling it "Divertimento"; it is this "lite" version that the Symphony performed. They sounded splendid yet decorous; Michael Grebanier's cello solo in the Pas de Deux hinted at wallowing once or twice, in the best possible way. The nimble Coda, a sort of offbeat Dance of the Hours, sounded especially fine.
It might have been more thought-provoking to have the entire Fairy's Kiss and just the famous Suite from the ballet Pulcinella of 1920; instead, we got it the other way round. No matter; the obvious affection that shone all through the performance of the 45-minute original allayed any disappointment. Though Stravinsky made great hay of it later as some sort of harbinger of his neo-classic style, the "reworking" involved in creating Pulcinella out of snippets from Pergolesi-and-Contemporaries was rather straightforward, and furthermore done to order. That doesn't make it any less brilliant, or delightful. Having the entire ballet means having three singers, whose various arias and ensembles have no dramatic function but provide a sort of added orchestral color. Thus the evening's three soloists, mezzo Irina Mishura, tenor Vsevolod Grivnov, and bass-baritone Juha Uusitalo, stood high on a platform at the back of the orchestra. It seems a difficult proposition balance-wise, but it would surely be worse were they all in an orchestra pit in front of dancers. In any case, they delivered their roles admirably; Mishura and Grivnov both have particularly penetrating voices and very clear diction. Two Russians and a Finn to sing these Italian and Neapolitan lyrics? Why not? As for the orchestral playing, Pulcinella is so full of audition-fodder that, in a major orchestra, it can hardly go wrong. Even so, Friday's performance was full of star turns. Oboist William Bennett was unfailingly elegant, as was flautist Robin McKee. The solo string quartet (Alexander Barantschik, Dan Smiley, Don Ehrlich, and Peter Wyrick) was somewhat spread out and seemed to be communicating as if with raised voices throughout, but most effectively. Trumpeter Mark Inouye was sparkling in his famous sprightly melody, and spot-on in the treacherous ending. As for the delicious buffo number featuring the trombone and bass, trombonist Paul Welcomer and bassist Larry Epstein were so assured, so downright plausible, in their solos, that one might almost forget why someone might think the combination funny. Indeed, the playing was all of a level that might cause one to forget that other big-name orchestra that was visiting Davies recently . . . well, not quite forget.
(George Thomson is a conductor, violinist and violist, Director of the Virtuoso Program at San Domenico School, San Anselmo.)
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