San Francisco Classical Voice

Rarely does an orchestral concert span six centuries of music; but in the the San Francisco Symphony performance on Wednesday, this was cleverly achieved. The program, which included an impassioned performance of Bernstein's Second Symphony The Age of Anxiety (1949) and a mostly traditional performance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (1807), began with Charles Wuorinen's Machault mon chou (1988), based on Guillaume de Machault's Masse de Nostre Dame. Machaut's Masse, a landmark musical masterpiece, was written in the 14th century.

The Wuorinen was the most ear-catching work of the evening. Machault mon Chou is neither a simple transcription of the Machault Mass nor an arrangement. It is a re-composition in the literal sense of the word; the melodies and harmonies of the earlier work have been put together anew. The resulting composition is a unique marriage-- 20th-century structure with 14th-century harmonies, 20th-century dramatic sense, 14-century liturgical origins, written for a 20th-century orchestra.

The 11-minute work was commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony in 1988, when Wuorinen was the Symphony's composer-in-residence. Eleven years later, it still fits the SFO perfectly, taking full advantage of its bright brass and clean string sound. Michael Tilson Thomas led a driving performance, bringing the work to life at every moment.

The Wuorinen was a curtain-raiser to Bernstein's Symphony No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra, based on Auden's poem The Age of Anxiety. The first of the work's two movements opens with a slow introduction preceding two sets of variations, the second following a slow-fast-slow pattern. To today's ears, much of this work (especially the first half) sounds predictable. There are at least two reasons for this. First, Bernstein's combination of jazzy and classical styles, the quartal and secondal harmonies, and gestures like building "pyramid" chords (chord tones introduced one by one in an ascending pattern) have been imitated by many composers--chiefly Hollywood composers--since this work was written. Second, because so many of the sounds were relatively new in 1949, Bernstein felt the necessity to fulfill virtually all the expectations he created. Nonetheless, frustrating musical expectations, historically is a basic and central compositional practice.

The soloist, Robin Sutherland, is especially well-known for his work with new music. He was also featured in the San Francisco Symphony's first performance of this work in 1993. Sutherland played the work with obvious comfort and enjoyment, bringing to it the needed passion, refinement, and virtuosity. The orchestra, too, gave an outstanding performance. Days later I can still hear the delicate interplay of the pianist and the percussion section, and a particularly glorious pianissimo chromatic chord in the strings.

It was delightfully ironic that a classical work--the too-often-played Fifth Symphony of Beethoven--represented the "token" on an otherwise twentieth-century program. Live performances of this work are important both to first-time listeners and to experienced concert-goers who have not heard it in many years. But for most listeners, one performance blends in with another, each making a lesser impression than the one before--unless, that is, the conductor has something new and important to say about the piece. Fortunately that was the case on this evening.

Throughout the first half of the symphony, tempos, balances, and phrasing were ordinary. Then, at the close of the second movement, Tilson Thomas made a very strong ritard where none is indicated. It was a shocking experience, and left me uneasy during the pause between the second and third movements. The epiphany came at the written ritards and cadences that appear in the first bars of the third movement. Thomas made certain the connection between the falling melodic thirds at the end of the second movement and the filled-in thirds at the cadences early in the third movement. This is no small point: Tilson Thomas clarified a connection in the work that (in my experience) had never before been shown. I don't know if Beethoven would have approved of this change, but he might have. It clarified one of his intentions, and brought new interest to an old war-horse.

(Ronald Catalbiano is a composer living in San Francisco and teaching at San Francisco State University.)

©1999 Ronald Catalbiano, all rights reserved