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SYMPHONY REVIEW
Ave Mozart, Morituri Te Salutant April 27, 2002
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By Janos Gereben
SAN JOSE - In one split second, it all disappeared.
A crushing debt of millions of dollars, an orchestra struggling for survival in the still-bleeding heart of shell-shocked Silly Valley, the ongoing consequences of administrative bungling, unreliable/underdeveloped community support, the sad story of musicians suddenly left without salary — it all fell away, vanished in the Center for the Performing Arts Saturday night. What remained was the ineffable beauty of Mozart played with the kind of perfection I have rarely heard even in Vienna or Berlin.
It came in the middle of the Adagio of the Clarinet Concerto in A Major. George Cleve opened the movement quietly and slowly, and at the restatement of the theme, he took the volume down to the threshold of hearing. Instead of the usual prominent, in-your-face solo entry, Michael Corner played as if sitting way in the back of the section, with an appealing sense of humility, completely in service of the music.
Slow, quiet, sweet and yet majestic, the music spread a hush, a sense of timeless wonder over the huge auditorium. The audience of 2,200, which came to do good in rescuing the orchestra ended up doing well in receiving magic in exchange. The burst of San Jose's traditional, automatic mid-work applause this time seemed genuine and almost appropriate: audience participation after a magnificent riff.
In the old days (1972-1992) when Cleve was the music director and the San Jose Symphony was a viable, well-supported organization, I often attended concerts here, but seldom heard excellence of this order... now that the orchestra is in limbo, its season cancelled, its future in grave doubt. Is this a kind of Mozart Effect — the poor play better? Or is it the application of Samuel Johnson's observation how hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully. In any case, this was a grand salute to Mozart from those already thrown to the lions. Strings were especially outstanding, violin sections (flanking Cleve, in the European configuration), led by Robin Mayforth and Rick Shinozaki, at their very best. Even San Jose's often-problematic brass, although not flawless, acquitted themselves well at this remarkable event. At this second benefit concert since SJS suspended operations in October, besides excellent playing throughout the evening, there was also some good news on the money front. A veteran supporter of the orchestra, Marie Bianco, announced her additional donation of $300,000. The benefit was sponsored by the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group, with corporate members such as Compaq, Microsoft, American Airlines and Wells Fargo pitching in. Against these good signs, there is something worrying about the language surrounding the rescue effort. It's all "restructuring" and "rejuvenation" and even "re-conceiving," instead of taking the bull by the horn and saying "we are trying to survive as an organization." Blowing hot air will not help this 123-year-old orchestra live and play another day, even if it can play so well as on this occasion.
For the evening's program, Cleve served up some of his favorite music, all Mozart, all from the composer's last three years of life. Before the concerto, Cleve conducted a vibrant Magic Flute Overture (free from the usual misplaced sanctimony), followed Corner's self-effacing star turn with excerpts from Don Giovanni featuring a fine young baritone, Scott Bearden, and the soprano Sandra Rubalcava, who didn't seem to know what she was singing, but even if she did, her mushy diction prevented conveying such simple text as "Vedrai carino." The evening concluded with what has virtually become Cleve's signature piece - the "Jupiter." Every orchestra that plays Mozart's Symphony No. 41 with Cleve sounds different, but every performance under his baton (at least those I heard) is characterized by the same irresistible forward motion, a fine balance of sections, of dynamics, of rhythm and melody. Of his "Jupiter" performances with the San Jose orchestra, this was clearly the best. With the orchestra's music director, Leonid Grin, still absent and busy elsewhere, Cleve "came home" in style, clearly relishing the occasion, more relaxed and connecting with the audience than I ever witnessed - and the results were all there to hear in the music.
Cleve, in fact, might have relaxed a bit too much, at least from this (otherwise un-snobbish) listener's point of view. San Jose audiences have an unfortunate tendency to applaud after EVERY movement of EVERY work, and Cleve seemed to be encouraging this awful small-town behavior (in Northern California's largest city) by turning around each time, smiling benignly on those who prefer to disrupt the connection between various parts of a single work. Surely Cleve's new populist stance had nothing to do with Grin's vain attempts in the past to control "audience participation." I don't know if Cleve had a hand in the decision for the encore after the concerto, but he was in such a mellow mood, I wouldn't be surprised if he thought Thelonius Monk was just the ticket. Corner, my newly-favorite clarinetist, played the heck out of Blue Monk, ably assisted by orchestra bassist David Schoenbrun, but somehow after that heavenly Mozart, it was a bit jarring. Objective journalism requires reporting that the other 2,199 listeners and Corner's beaming orchestra colleagues approved lustily. (Janos Gereben, a regular contributor to www.sfcv.org, is arts editor of the Post Newspaper Group. His e-mail address is janos451@earthlink.net.) ©2002 Janos Gereben, all rights reserved |