San Francisco Classical Voice

Something of considerable artistic importance is happening in the music scene of the South Bay, driven by the San Jose Chamber Orchestra's clever, whimsical, and daring repertory, thanks to the orchestra's music director, Barbara Day Turner. Her unlikely pairing of compositions on Sunday evening's concert (at San Jose's tiny but efficient Petit Trianon), show her to have an affinity for clever, inventive, and adventurous programming.

One work that was serious, difficult, and very much worth listening to was by a Erich Wolfgang Korngold, known best for two film score academy awards (Robin Hood and Anthony Adverse). That was coupled with the world premiere of a collaboration between a Memphis opera composer, Michael Ching, and a California/New York actor/storyteller, Margaret Olivia Wolfson. These were two movements from Korngold's Symphonic Serenade in B-flat for String Orchestra, Op. 39 (1948) followed by Ching's Psyche and Eros: A Play for Solo Actor and String Orchestra.

Anyone who grew up wanting to be one of Errol Flynn's "m'hearties" in either Captain Blood (1935) or The Sea Hawk (1940) or in his band of merry men in Robin Hood (1938) knows how exciting Korngold was with a tune. But he was no happier writing movie music than Sir Arthur Sullivan was in composing operettas. Korngold considered his film compositions as make-a-living music forced on him by the Nazism that caused the Jewish composer to leave Austria for America in the 1930s. By the time he returned to Austria in 1948, the world of serious music had passed him by.

Probably due to the length and complexity of the Ching/Wolfson, Turner played only two movements of the Korngold. Having never heard the work before, I was left baffled by hearing only the Lento Religioso and Intermezzo movements, having no way of knowing where these two movements fit into the overall composition. Nonetheless, what I heard was absolutely gorgeous, clever, well constructed, and intelligent. It revealed enormous skill and profound talent. According to Turner, the orchestra will play the entire work in another season. Oh well, back to Robin Hood!

The Ching/Wolfson collaboration is simply marvelous. I will be astonished if it does not rush headfirst into both the orchestral repertory and an actor's collection of things to do. It's either like being told a great story with musical accompaniment or hearing a wonderful piece of music made more engaging by a narrator.

Still, it would be wrong to describe Wolfson's role as that of a narrator. Here, acting, not reading a script, she dominates by playing multiple memorized roles, using small hand motions (to imitate butterflies), large body motions (to imitate a reed blowing in the wind), and even singing.

The bulk of the piece is spent telling the story of Psyche from her own point view. Only occasionally does the actor represent Psyche's mortal lover, the god Eros. Further, most of the non-Psyche and non-Eros voices are those of women, such as Eros' mother, Aphrodite. Because the music runs the gamut of dynamics, the actor must be amplified yet free to inhabit all areas of the stage and most of what was said was quite audible.

Ching is a gifted composer capable of turning out well-crafted music, very romantic when the occasion dictates and frightening when that is called for. In the work, the solo violin part that portrays the love the two title characters have for each other, was beautifully performed by Cynthia Baehr.

As a conductor, Turner has made herself a class act since I first saw her some years ago. But there is something very much in need of change. Her use of almost-constant parallel beating of meter with both arms is inefficient and robs her of her very natural gracefulness and elegance. As a music director, Turner's programming choices show that she will make nothing but waves, her imaginative efforts ensuring that neither her orchestra nor her programs are going to be pedestrian or easy to forget.

(Musicologist/author Dan Leeson is a former member of the San Jose Symphony Orchestra, a retired businessman, and an editor of the 220-volume complete Mozart edition published by Bärenreiter.)

©2000 Dan Leeson, all rights reserved