San Francisco Classical Voice

On Saturday's program, much of the best music followed the intermission, in a series of brilliant solo performances of three different and distinctive pieces. Capriccio (1981) for cello, composed for conductor/music patron Paul Sacher's 70th birthday, is a set of demanding and wide-ranging variations based on the letters in Sacher's name, often punctuated by arpeggiated pizzicato chords. Cellist Vanessa Ruotolo gave it a strong, impassioned performance, emphasizing the work's structural continuity as much as its expressively varying moods and virtuosity. Karen Shinozaki brought wonderful clarity, precision, and scope to Henze's Sonata for Solo Violin (1976-1977, revised in 1992), whose three movements were inspired by a 15th century version of the Orpheus legend. An obstacle course of leaps and difficult double-stops, the piece incorporates brief excerpts from Monteverdi's Orfeo within its flamboyant, virtuosic texture, all of which Shinozaki played with steady, resourceful mastery, eliciting cheers from the audience.

Probably the concert's high point was the final piece, Five Scenes from the Snow Country (1978) for marimba, played by Chris Froh. This work, covering the marimba's entire range, revels in contrast, from its hushed tremolando opening to the pounding, fortissimo chords at the end. Froh's performance showed balletic skill, as he chose rapidly between two sets of mallets for a brief passage, then just as quickly set them down to play a swirling cascade of notes with his fingers. These textural and coloristic changes added enormously to the vitality and spontaneity of the music, as this piece unfolded more freely and with greater originality than anything else on the program.

Froh's keen sense of phrasing and forward momentum made it all cohere — no easy task in a composition with such rapid changes and dramatic discontinuities, and on an instrument totally unable to sustain any sound. His feeling for the work's ebb and flow and its climactic moments held the listeners in rapt concentration throughout.

During the first half of the concert, Henze's earlier music was featured. The opening work, Serenade (1949) was played by bassist Richard Worn. Its nine brief movements already show the composer's penchant for textural contrast and dramatic shifts of mood, along with unflagging inventiveness and a fluent grasp of string writing. This is music of an older genre, with developing motives and consistent rhythmic patterns, sometimes referring to traditional dances like the minuet and tango, but still composed with originality and verve. Sonatine (1947), in an attractive performance by flutist Stacey Pelinka and pianist Judith Yan, shows the 20-year-old Henze capable of composing a three-movement work in his own personal idiom with freshness and ingenuity, though there are still some neoclassical influences shaping the material.

San Biagio 9 agosto ore 12:07 (1977) commemorates the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945. A single motive effectively unifies its separate melodic strands, an introspective fantasy played imaginatively and expressively by Richard Worn. Der Junge Torless (1966), for a sextet of strings, was taken and reworked from a movie score by Henze. Based on a short novel by Robert Musil, the film provides Torless with a sampling of erotic and sadistic behavior at a boys' school, from which he emerges liberated on his way to adulthood. The four-movement suite alternates gently reflective lyricism with dynamic, sometimes brutal episodes that encapsulate the story's emotional range.

On July 22 there will be more music by Henze, including pieces for larger ensembles, and next year Worn will try to mount a theatrical or operatic work by the composer. These concerts are held at the San Francisco Presidio Chapel, picturesquely situated next to the Presidio's cemetery. Directions to the site are just a Google away.