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SYMPHONY REVIEW
June 3, 2004
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By Charles Barber
The most interesting work at last Thursday afternoon's San Francisco Symphony concert lay in a realization of Bach which the old master himself never heard. It was guest conductor Sir Andrew Davis' transcription of the Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 582, and a world premiere no less. It was a tremendous success by any measure.
It was also a clever look in the rear-view mirror, back to the days when renowned conductors did this sort of thing. Stokowski did so, and the music he arranged and conducted for Disney's Fantasia made him immortal in wide circles. So too the other conductors who made transcriptions — Siloti, Mahler, Furtwängler, Mitropoulos — and such artists as Webern and Schoenberg. Although today shunned by the early-music mavens, orchestral transcriptions were long-considered an honorable homage.
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Like Stokowski himself (who also wrote an arrangement of the same Passacaglia), Sir Andrew began life as an organist. He uses that hearing apparatus to conceive line and voice. The result was a thesaurus of special orchestral effects, all pointed toward the twenty personalities of the whole variation set. It opened with a magical gesture. Robin Sutherland at the solo piano struck
each note of the principal melody sforzato, and ethereally in cellos the same material played with the hushed restraint of sotto voce. From there woodwinds took over, the bass clarinet looming through the mists. All of this built with exquisite softness and introspection.
Each choir of the orchestra, and several in unusual combinations, took turns on display. These forces might be reduced to solo viola, flute, bass clarinet and harp. They might be expanded to the brass choir in medieval formations. Special moments drew the strings from the rising arpeggiation of the harp, and back again. Trombones were treated (and played) with special regard. Even more wisely, Davis throttled back the full power of this very large orchestra until the final moments. This delayed climax made its ultimate arrival all the more triumphant. The Passacaglia was followed by a dramatic and urgent reading of Bach's Cantata No. 82, "Ich habe genug," originally premiered on February 2, 1727. Davis here used forces with which Bach would have been familiar, but including counter-tenor David Daniels in a role often taken by baritones and occasionally, mezzo sopranos. Davis was a discreet and refined accompanist, interjecting himself only when absolutely necessary. Otherwise, he showed the utmost regard for his colleagues, meddling not at all. He was not disappointed. Oboeist William Bennett played with touching, vocal sweetness, and in long riparian lines. This was matched by Daniels at every step. The orchestra was now reduced to very small numbers, with Sutherland at the harpsichord. Daniels' voice, as with that of most counter-tenors, must be enhanced with the utmost restraint in its accompaniment. Only in its lowest register did Davis fail him. I sat in the 11th row from the front, and several times saw the mouth move but heard no sound. Given the beauty of that sound, this was a recurring disappointment.
Daniels has excellent pitch, a refined and reliable melisma, and beyond all an actor's commitment to the text. This had special command in the recitative. Daniels believed and, in time, so did we. It may have been difficult to change gears. It may have been impossible to assert a completely variant sound in the space of one intermission. Whatever the reason, Davis had less success with the final work on the program, Dvorak's seventh symphony. It was, of course, technically expert. The Symphony never fails to hit that mark these days. Rather, it never moved beyond the merely able. This work may wear a Brahmsian wig, but its roots are Czech. Passages of ethnic warmth and drive which live within never materialized. Gracious cello lines in the Poco Adagio drew us closer to Vienna than to Prague. (Listen to Talich's November 1938 recording with the Czech Philharmonic and hear what's possible.) To be sure, the famous Scherzo displayed rigorous hemiola (hello Johannes), and Davis' vocally-conceived lines occasionally shone through the formal landscapes. The Finale became merely frantic. Thus pushed, the glorious minor/major transition sounded more like afterthought than revelation.
(Charles Barber holds masters' and doctoral degrees in conducting from Stanford University, has served as assistant to Sir Charles Mackerras, and studied with Carlos Kleiber. He is the author of the recently-published book, 'Lost in the Stars: The Forgotten Musical Life of Alexander Siloti', published by Rowman and Littlefield.)
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David Daniels
Andrew Davis