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Reviews
RECITAL
Stunning Debut
By William Wellborn
Marc-André Hamelin
(12/2/03)
SYMPHONY
The Spin-Doctor Is In
By George Thomson
San Francisco Symphony
(12/5/03)
EARLY MUSIC
A Wondrous Tale
By Anna Carol Dudley
Pacific Mozart Ensemble
Aurora Theater
(12/5/03)
SYMPHONY
Warhorseless
By Jeff Dunn
Santa Rosa Symphony
Norman Krieger
(12/6/03)
RECITAL
Fine Fiddling
By Heuwell Tircuit
Frank Huang
Carol Wong
(12/1/03)
CHORAL
Volti Turns a Page
By Charles Barber
Volti
(12/7/03)
EARLY MUSIC
Evensong for Noel
By Kip Cranna
California Bach Society
(12/7/03)
CONTEMPORARY MUSIC
Composer and Performer
By Jules Langert
Composers Inc.
(12/2/03)
CHAMBER MUSIC
A Strange and Delightful Mix
By Michelle Dulak
Donna Bruno
Elizabeth Prior Runnicles
Mack McCray
(12/5/03)
CHAMBER MUSIC
Variegated Colors
By Scott Cmiel
Los Angeles Guitar Quartet
(12/4/03)
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Responses to Our 12/2/03 Question of the Week
MUSIC NEWS
Opera San José a Teenager No More
By Janos Gereben
Robert Commanday, Senior Editor
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In its visit and performances last month, the Berlin Philharmonic created deep, lasting impressions. First was the quality of the orchestra and its performance, instantly recognized, setting a standard to which other orchestras should aspire and against which listeners will compare them. It is not the foolish pronouncement of which (orchestra) is "Numbah One!" that counts, but rather what constitutes real ensemble and beautiful performance of great music. Simon Rattle has been cultivating that in the short 13 months of his new tenure, building on the legacy principally of Herbert von Karajan's 35 years and Claudio Abbado's 13 years, combined with the tradition of players' pride and management of their own orchestra's affairs.
The effects of Rattle's tenure thus far were all unmistakable to two sold-out houses in the performances, as discussed in detail in George Thomson's review in SFCV last week.
Something else of lasting significance came out of those performances — a proof of, or testimony to, Davies Hall's acoustical properties since its invaluable renovation and 1992 reopening. The members of the Berlin Philharmonic slipped into Davies as if it were a form-fitting glove, as if they played in it all the time. That is not to suggest that the Davies acoustics are as fine as those of Hans Scharoun's Berlin Philharmonie, which is not likely. But the Berlin musicians, accustomed to their Philharmonie, were obviously comfortable in Davies, "comfortable" meaning able to hear each other and their whole ensemble clearly, confident that in producing the finest pianissimo possible that its sound would be sustained, confident that in playing full out the musical clarity would be protected, that there would be no sound overload to cause distortion.
The response of a hall has an incalculable effect on a visiting orchestra or artist. An analogy might be an artist being handed an unfamiliar instrument on which he is expected to play a recital (as happens to pianists routinely of course). If it is a violin and turns out to be great one, then the artist can perform at his best. For an artist to reach his highest potential, a great instrument is essential. It is similar for an orchestra. The hall is its collective instrument. The conductor also has to be sensitive to the hall and know how to play it.
Generally speaking, an orchestra cannot reach the high level we simply call "great" unless it practices, performs, lives in a great hall. Symphony Hall(Boston), Severance Hall (Cleveland) and the original Carnegie Hall come to mind. The reason is not that in such halls the audiences receive the best possible sound. It's not about audiences, not primarily. It is that on those stages, the orchestra players can hear each other, their own sections, and the whole ensemble sound, with excellent clarity. Such an acoustical chamber is the first essential in the creation of great orchestral playing, assuming of course the excellence of the individual players, the standard of musicianship and skill and, most surely, a great conductor.
This explains how some orchestras achieved greatness in halls that, from the audience viewpoint, had shortcomings. On the stages of Chicago's Orchestra Hall and Philadelphia's Academy of Music (since replaced by Verizon Hall in the Kimmel Center), the musicians heard everything they needed to hear. The sound that was fed back to them informed and excited them. When the conductor pointed out something that needed attention, they could hear what he meant, and when they made the correction or otherwise followed his direction, they could appreciate the difference, aurally. In that way, an orchestra begins to play by ear, critically, as individuals, as section, as an entity. That's the first step of becoming a great orchestra. The conductor's ear and guidance form without a doubt, the crucial factor. It takes a Stokowski, Ormandy, Koussevitzky, Karajan, Abbado, Rattle.
Great orchestras reach a point where, in a sense, they carry their sound with them, able to produce it to a recognizable extent in whatever hall they are playing. I first observed this when the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra performed in UC Zellerbach Auditorium just a few years after its opening in 1968. The hall still had musically resistant acoustics, with a 2-second reverberation time. While musical sounds in all previous performances in the then-new hall died an early death or were most unflatteringly heard, the Concertgebouw sounded like the Concertgebouw. I concluded that that orchestra was so accustomed to playing in a certain way, physically, its musicians so conditioned to produce their sound and, collectively, their orchestra's, they simply bowed and blew their practiced way and voilà, they produced the Concertgebouw sound in the Zellerbach "funeral parlor." "They could make that sound in an open field," I thought. (A subsequent renovation corrected Zellerbach's acoustics and the university's original embarrassing mistake).
San Franciscans have experienced the two great lifts that changed the acoustical environment and afforded the Symphony its chance to build its sound. When the SF Symphony moved from the symphonically-challenged Opera House into the just completed Davies Symphony Hall in 1980, it immediately became a new orchestra producing a new sound. Capitalizing on this greatly improved orchestral chamber over the ensuing years, Edo de Waart kept developing the sound. Orchestra building it was called. (Actually, de Waart was helped immeasurably by the fact that with the move into Davies, the SF Opera Orchestra was split off from the Symphony, and he was then enabled to hire 30 or 40 new young musicians, replacing the players who had elected to go to the Opera or take retirement from the Symphony. The SF Symphony was then a partially new orchestra in point of fact.)
As most people realized, Davies' acoustics were then far from excellent; the hall underwent an extensive renovation, and in September 1992 it was reopened with very satisfying acoustical properties. Michael Tilson Thomas benefitted from this, after assuming the music directorship three years later, and the orchestra began discovering more and more of its sound potential. This had to happen before the SF Symphony could achieve the level of quality that was inherent in its personnel. (In a parallel, recent development, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, after opening its new Disney Concert Hall in October, can at last begin developing its potential.) Again, an orchestra cannot reach the high level unless it lives in a great hall.
The Berlin Philharmonic came, played and conquered — and, incidentally, found its comfort zone in Davies Hall and validated the feelings here that this, too, is a pretty good hall.
(Robert P. Commanday, the senior editor of San Francisco Classical Voice, was the music critic of the San Francisco Chronicle, 1965-93, and before that a conductor and lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley.)
©2003 Robert Commanday, all rights reserved
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From September 1, 1998 to October 7, 2003, we have published, in addition to the Music News, feature pieces and weekly editorials 1586 reviews of Bay Area performances by: 47 symphony orchestras (333 reviews), 72 chamber groups (171), 33 new music ensembles and programs (177), 34 opera companies (226), 26 choral groups (97), 15 music festivals (70), 32 early music ensembles (107), 21 chamber orchestras (72), 5 musical theater groups (13), world music (14), recitals (286), youth music (10), Other (10).
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