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SYMPHONY REVIEW
January 31, 2004
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By Scott MacClelland
Symphony Silicon Valley's “Something for Everyone” program last Saturday was one for the books. A “sampler” of five works, representing three centuries, attracted a sell-out audience, eager for a good time. In common programming parlance, such would predictably need an experienced craftsman, and Mallory Thompson kept things moving briskly along from start to finish. Whether she is also an artist remained unrevealed.
It probably wasn't Thompson's fault that the brass ensemble several times blotted out the strings. That often goes with the large complement of winds and percussion found in the works of Kabalevsky, Wagner and Hindemith heard at the Center for Performing Arts. In fact, part of the fault stems from the CPA itself, whose acoustic shell, as deployed, acts like a megaphone for the ranks at the back of the stage. But roll over the strings they did — as indeed they have in previous performances this season. (Coincidentally, Thompson's conducting career, as performer and educator — Northwestern University, and several others — is steeped in the American concert band tradition.
The strings of Symphony Silicon Valley deserve better. When they are allowed to shine, they often do so with lustrous tone and excellent teamwork. For want of an installed music director, orchestral balance has suffered, along with other orchestra disciplines. Guest conductors cannot realistically be expected to rectify bad habits that creep into orchestral playing. But that is one of the high-priority expectations of a permanent conductor, which this orchestra truly needs.
Such should be its reward. Saturday's full-house audience — including lots of new faces — demonstrated its boisterous enthusiasm again and again. Moreover, the orchestra's morale has picked up substantially since its revival under the leadership of executive director Andrew Bales and the crucial support at the right moment by Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley. Notwithstanding other inevitable anxieties that accompany the birth of a new Symphony enterprise, the current product stands to be improved, the sooner the better. Thompson's program might well have been called “Greatest Hits:” Kabalevsky's Colas Breugnon overture, Hummel's Trumpet Concerto in E, Bach's Brandenburg Concerto in G for strings and Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes by Weber. Even though rarely played these days, the short suite of from Act III of Wagner's Meistersinger opens a window on one of that composer's most popular works. Kabalevsky is at his most brilliant and vivacious in this 1938 orchestral showpiece (and, by the way, an excellent choice for an auditioning conductor.) In one moment or another, everybody gets to be a virtuoso. Ironically, a lyrical passage that presented an opportunity for expressively elastic phrasing went unheeded under Thompson's driving style. Principal trumpeter James Dooley dusted off his rarely used E instrument for the Hummel, and sputtered up some flashy triple tonguing in the bravura final movement. The piece itself, an imitation of the late Mozart piano concerto, is probably the only work by Hummel that gets any play at all these days, kept alive by trumpet virtuosos.
Extraordinary for its concentrated brevity, the suite of Wagner cobbled from the third act of Meistersinger captures the many moods of the sprawling masterpiece. The Prelude examines the hopes and resignation of the work's hero Hans Sachs; the Dance of the Apprentices shows Wagner at his most carefree; and the Entry of the Masters exalts the noble grandeur of this humanist drama. In her affection for the brass complement, Thompson allowed them to obfuscate entirely more than a few important inner voices in the contrapuntal weave. Opening the second half, the first-stand string players, plus a third cello and harpsichordist, marched on stage together for the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 as Bach composed it, and without conductor. This intimate presentation sounded impressively big in the room, and showed off string colors not normally apparent in ensemble playing. At last came the sensationally orchestrated, feistily contrapuntal Hindemith, though again the conductor allowed the brass complement to blot out important lines in the strings and woodwinds. Nevertheless, the orchestra gave the punching first allegro, riotous TurandotScherzo and smacking final March an impact those present won't soon forget.
(Scott MacClelland, since 1978, has written music criticism and journalism for all the major newspapers on the Monterey Peninsula, and for the Metro papers in Santa Cruz and San Jose. During the same period, he has taught music history for Monterey Peninsula College.)
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Mallory Thompson
James Dooley