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The Perfect Score

Dan Leeson on May 9, 2009
Bernard Labadie
Some orchestral programs are naturally perfect — the compositions are linked by friendly key relationships, similar temperaments, and compatible styles. The attendees at Thursday afternoon’s San Francisco Symphony concert at Davies Symphony Hall had a perfect program handed to them on a silver platter, conducted energetically by Bernard Labadie, founder of Montreal’s early music ensemble Les Violons du Roy.

The first work in a compatible pair of 18th-century pieces was Haydn’s Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat. The four soloists, Dan Nobuhiko Smiley, violin; Peter Wyrick, cello; Jonathan Fischer, oboe; and Stephen Paulson, bassoon complemented each other beautifully.

A Sinfonie Concertante (a French invention of the late 18th century that Parisian audiences loved) was the name for a concerto for multiple instruments and orchestra. (But if the instruments were not standard members of the orchestra, such as in Mozart’s work for flute, harp, and orchestra, the work was called a concerto.)

The brilliant playing of violinist Smiley, who serves as the orchestra’s first chair second violin, was impressive. He would be an asset to any orchestra. Jonathan Fischer, the orchestra’s associate principal oboist, should be kept by symphony management in a locked room, because there are probably a dozen world-class orchestras prepared to abduct him in the middle of the night. Bassoonist Paulson looks like an ordinary, working class guy. But put a bassoon in his hands and words are not sufficient to praise his exceptional playing. Wyrick, currently the associate principal cellist, is indistinguishable from his instrument — they are so closely matched that they must be joined at the hip.

gran Partitta

The second half of the concert presented the audience with a single, hour-long Mozart composition. In the film Amadeus, Antonio Salieri describes his emotions on first hearing it with the words, “It seemed to me that I was hearing the voice of God.” The composition is the Serenade in B-Flat for 12 wind instruments and string bass, K. 361, sometimes given the subtitle of gran partitta.

The seven-movement work is for six pairs of wind instruments — oboes, clarinets, basset horns, bassoons, horns in E-flat, horns in B-flat basso … and a string bass. It is an unbelievable flurry of melody, harmony, invention, and compositional brilliance. The work is a miracle of instrumental colors, and it never wears on you. The four woodwind solo voices were William Bennett, oboe; Carey Bell, clarinet; David Neumann, basset horn; and Stephen Paulson, bassoon. Only space considerations prevent me from mentioning the names of the other nine excellent players.

There were a few glitches to the evening. The most significant had to do with the basset horns owned by the orchestra and supplied to the two performers, David Neumann and Luis Baez. Orchestras sometimes own rarely-played instruments, such as Wagner tubas and basset horns. But the symphony’s basset horns have a serious saliva collection problem that clogs up the holes. There isn’t much that can be done about it, even between movements. I could see the two players continually faced with difficulties, which they tried their best to manage. Playing the composition is difficult enough without having instrument problems mid-performance. The basset horn used by Luis Baez did not speak with a strong and compelling presence. Yet Baez is not a timid player, and the difficulties he had with his instrument were not his fault. Those basset horns date from the 1970s and they need to be replaced, not so much because they are old, but rather because they never were top-drawer instruments, and the technology has undergone substantial improvement.

Conductor Labadie had a strong sense of the work, and introduced some interesting dynamic changes that were fun to hear. However, he has a tendency to end movements with a ritardando. That’s a much more Romantic period practice than one from the 18th century. Most important for a visiting conductor, Labadie is a clear and precise leader.

And bless him, he not only tolerated but also encouraged improvisations from the solo performers in the Mozart Serenade. It was tremendously exciting to hear the players modify the instrumental lines with intelligent ornaments at appropriate times. It gave the work the kind of excitement and impetuous character that one normally only gets from a good jazz band. But the third movement, which begs for performer elaboration, was left untouched. On the final repetition of the movement’s first section, the three solo players — oboe, clarinet, and basset horn — should let fly with brilliance. It isn’t that the players can’t do it, because elsewhere, they showed how luminously they could. Clarinetist Bell, for example, had three lead-ins in the work’s fifth movement, and his impetuous creation of three different and inventive ones was really exceptional. I so enjoyed this performance that purely for personal pleasure I went to hear it a second time.