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CHAMBER MUSIC REVIEW
Sameness of Sound Stifles Handbell Program
June 29, 2001
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By Michael Zwiebach
Whether every aficionado of handbell ringing in the Bay Area was on hand at the Kofman Auditorium in Alameda on Friday, when the Sonos Handbell Ensemble performed a program of music with Spanish and Latin American roots, would be difficult to ascertain. However, judging from the rapturous applause that greeted their efforts, soloist Frederica von Stade was not the only attraction for many.
I feel like a recalcitrant Music 101 student, then, to have to report that the concert was bland, even by light summer music standards. The length of the evening, combined with the enervating heat and the unfortunate preponderance of lullabies on the program's first half, nearly succeeded in rendering me comatose. Isaac Albeniz is not a composer who needs the sweetening effect of a handbell ensemble. Subjected to such arrangements, the music's cup of treacle runneth over.
But the main problem was in the nature of the beast: After a couple of numbers, the lack of sonic variety began to make itself felt. Sonos' director, Jim Meredith, was clever enough to intersperse the program with songs featuring von Stade, together with oboist Roger Wiesmeyer and Nayo Ulloa, playing traditional Peruvian instruments. But their appearance brought up another problem: Unlike an orchestra, the handbell ensemble operates on an almost mechanical principle in which individuals are the keys of the piano, so to speak, and play only a few notes each of a melody. The resulting musical automaton is ill equipped to interact with other musicians. For the audience, it's like being inside a music box.
This is too bad, in a way, because, for those who have previously encountered handbell ringing only in department stores during the Christmas holidays, the Sonos Ensemble appears to be the Vienna Philharmonic or, perhaps, the Stradivarius of handbell ensembles. What variety is to be had from these instruments they delivered with impeccable rhythmic accuracy and tight coordination. They performed ornaments with precision, used different mallets to hit the bells, swung the bells, tapped them, and sometimes even plucked the clappers as the bells lay on the table (which mutes the sound). It was not enough, and only the truly optimistic could have believed Meredith when he mentioned that a certain seguidilla (dance of southern Spain) was going to allow the ensemble to cut loose. In spite of the Spanish flavor of the concert, the most interesting piece was the last, Libby Larsen's short song cycle Hell's Belles, being given its premiere. The texts were compiled and adapted from interviews, poems, and quotations of women who, as the title suggests, subvert overly traditional notions of femininity. Musically, Larsen had the interesting idea of undercutting the sweetness of the handbell choir in the same way. So in the first song, she sets the nursery rhyme "There was a little girl and she had a little curl" in an exaggeratedly smiling manner but interrupts the song with annunciatory chord clusters in rapid divisions like a nervous town crier.
The song halts for quotations from Talulah Bankhead, Billie Jean King, and Gertrude Stein, sung a capella and with great comic verve by von Stade. The other four songs are musically more interesting, but all share the same fluid vocal style and the composer's sharp ear for the poetic image that can be crystallized in music, especially for this ensemble. ("Inside the car, thousands of tiny Christmas tree lights, twinkling.") Larsen fills the pieces with multiple accompaniments and fascinating harmonic changes. Had it occurred earlier in the evening, I might have been engaged more fully. As for the rest of the concert, von Stade sang with her usual warmth and beautiful tone, although occasionally she seemed to be trying too hard to put over her numbers and resorted to pulling faces. She's welcome wherever she shows up. Several of the songs had quite beautiful melodies and revealed Meredith's real skill as an arranger. But I still consider it ear candy, and I say, "Ugh." (Michael Zwiebach holds a Ph.D. in musicology from UC Berkeley, specializing in opera, and is a lecturer for the San Francisco Opera.) ©2001 Michael Zwiebach, all rights reserved |
