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Reviews
CONTEMPORARY MUSIC
French Fireworks
CHAMBER MUSIC
Navidad Española
MUSIC NEWS
Merry Rudolphus to You, Classically
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Responses to Our 12/13/05 Question of the Week
By Jules Langert
San Francisco Contemporary Music Players
(12/12/05)
By Rebekah Ahrendt
El Mundo
(12/17/05)
By Janos Gereben
Mickey Butts, Executive Director/Publisher
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To mark the near-end of the musical year, San Francisco Classical Voice takes a look back at the concerts of 2005 that our reviewers most enjoyed. As with any such list, the choices are entirely subjective and depend on the concerts our reviewers attended. Thankfully, each of the following critics attended a large number concerts in their areas of speciality throughout the year, and so were able to choose from a considerable sample (in some cases, listing concerts they attended but that another SFCV critic reviewed). With each item, we list the presenting organization, the title or performer if possible, and the date that we reviewed it. SFCV will feature a second set of picks from more of our critics in two weeks, when we return to publication on January 3 after a week's break for the holidays. And now, our critics' top picks:
San Francisco Lyric Opera
Un ballo in maschera
3/19/05
San Francisco Lyric Opera
Carmen
10/8/05
The San Francisco Lyric Opera, previously a woeful excuse for a small opera company, stepped into the spotlight this year with a few excellent productions. The credit goes mostly to Barnaby Palmer, Lyric Opera's 31-year-old music director, as well as the young, enthusiastic singers and musicians who sing and play opera as if it were something new and exciting. Carmen and Ballo were remarkably good and deserve to be singled out.
San Francisco Opera
Rodelinda
9/17/05
San Francisco Opera
Doctor Atomic
10/1/05
San Francisco Opera
La forza del destino
11/2/05
With all the Sturm und Drag [sic] of the San Francisco Opera, the company did produce some good evenings of musical theater, especially Rodelinda (music only, not all the stage distractions), the interesting novelty of Doctor Atomic, and an orchestrally forceful Forza del destino.
Adler Fellows
12/1/05
Heard onstage in the War Memorial, but more significantly at numerous recitals, the 10 members of the year's Adler Fellowship program warmed the cockles of opera-lovers' hearts.
San Francisco Symphony and Chorus
1/8/05
The year started off with a big bang at the January concert of San Francisco Symphony that included Berio's Duetti per due violini and Janácek's Glagolitic Mass. Soprano Measha Brueggergosman made her local debut in the Janácek, and I can still hear the sound of her voice nearly a year later. (More! More!)
San Francisco Opera
Pique Dame
6/12/05
This was musically thrilling. Katarina Dalayman and Misha Didyk probably could not be surpassed as the doomed Lisa and obsessed Ghermann, and Hanna Schwartz was a scary Old Countess. Too bad about the production, which ran aground on a few conceits, including the use of distracting puppets in the Daphnis and Chloe scene and the substitution of a giant skeleton for the Countess's Act III appearances, which elicited giggles from the audience when we should have been terrified.
Music@Menlo
Jeffrey Kahane
7/31/05
The summer brought Jeffrey Kahane's Music@Menlo concert, which consisted of a lecture, the Goldberg Variations, the Diabelli Variations, and a question-and-answer session. I'm sure this was a once-in-a-lifetime event, because, really, you have to be a little crazy to even attempt such a thing. And Kahane was brilliant, all around, playing both pieces with poise, penetrating insight, wit, beauty of tone, endless musicality, and utter concentration.
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorus
Atalanta
9/10/05
San Francisco Opera
Rodelinda
9/17/05
A week in which you hear two Handel operas has to be counted as memorable, and in September, I hit the jackpot: Both Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra's Atalanta and San Francisco Opera's Rodelindagot bang-up performances, full of telling detail, great singing, superb conducting, and terrific drama.
San Francisco Opera
Doctor Atomic
10/1/05
Doctor Atomic is rightfully going to be on the Most Memorable lists of nearly everyone who saw it, between the importance of the premiere, the excellence of the performers, and the beauty and impact of so much of the music. I just wish I'd gotten to see it a few more times.
Takács Quartet
4/3/05
This was the last hurrah of the pre-Geraldine-Walther Takács, and made it clear why people had been raving about the quartet's recorded Beethoven. The performance managed to be suave and unsettling at the same time, and made me anxious to find out what the group would sound like with Walther in it. (Six months on, I did find out.)
Skámpa Quartet
4/10/05
Another Morrison Artists Series triumph: three great works (Janácek, Smetana, Prokofiev) played spectacularly by one of the world's finest quartets, with no admission charge.
Artemis Quartet
4/18/05
A sharp, youngish quartet took on Beethoven and Bartók with complete fearlessness, ferocious chops, and no mean degree of subtlety either.
Emerson Quartet
8/11/05
The Emerson Quartet — which appeared for the first time in the Music@Menlo festival founded three years ago by Emerson cellist David Finckel and his wife, pianist Wu Han — played two of Beethoven's late quartets to an unnervingly high standard.
Takács Quartet
10/9/05
The Takács came back, with veteran San Francisco Symphony principal violist Geraldine Walther now in the place of Roger Tapping. The quartet newly incorporated a striking instrumental personality but still, surprisingly, sounded like itself.
Borodin Quartet
11/12/05
A quartet in longer continuous existence than any in history, whose founding cellist is still there 60 years on, brought a program of rare Russian repertoire (including Tchaikovsky's Second Quartet and Miaskovsky's 13th) and performed it with great warmth, jaw-dropping virtuosity, and sheer fun.
(Janos Gereben is a regular contributor to www.sfcv.org; his e-mail address is janosg@gmail.com. Lisa Hirsch, a technical writer, studied music at Brandeis and SUNY/Stony Brook. Michelle Dulak Thomson is a violinist and violist who has written about music for Strings, Stagebill, Early Music America, and The New York Times.)
©2006 Janos Gereben, Lisa Hirsch, and Michelle Dulak Thomson, all rights reserved
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From September 1, 1998 to September 13, 2005, SFCV has published, in addition to the Music News, feature pieces, and weekly editorials, 2,182 reviews of Bay Area performances by: 52 symphony orchestras (459 reviews), 89 chamber groups (267), 36 new-music ensembles and programs (234), 39 opera companies (306), 29 choral groups (133), 15 music festivals (101), 33 early-music ensembles (170), 24 chamber orchestras (88), 6 musical theater groups (14), as well as numerous world music groups (14), recital presenters (374), youth music ensembles (10), and other organizations (12).
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Michelle Dulak Thomson, Editor
Richard Thomas, Associate Editor
Both Mickey Butts and Michelle Dulak Thomson read all e-mails sent to editor@sfcv.org. Mickey oversees the overall quality of the site, assigns and edits features, and manages overall operations and all business-related issues; Michelle assigns and edits all reviews, assigns and edits features, selects photos, and edits the main page. (Richard copyedits articles and oversees production.) To reach either Mickey or Michelle individually, click on our names in the list above. (To reach SFCV founder and emeritus editor Robert Commanday, send e-mail only to bob@sfcv.org.) Items relevant to the Music News column should also be directed to Janos Gereben at janosg@gmail.com.
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