Twists in the Road

One of the charges frequently leveled against regional orchestras is that they program only the tried and true. While this may be on point in some instances — particularly in these tough economic times — the Santa Rosa Symphony's November program was both adventurous and free of filler. Nothing on the program was new (the most recent offering was composed in 1967), yet the works included were an appealing and substantive departure from the usual fare. Sunday afternoon's performance, the second of three at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts, featured Alban Berg's Violin Concerto, György Ligeti's Lontano, and Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 9 in C Major, "The Great." Conducted by Bruno Ferrandis, the Schubert emerged as the most polished of the three. Still, it was a pleasure to see a near-capacity audience in this congenial 1,675-seat house, listening intently to each work.

Credit Ferrandis for making it so. The conductor, who succeeded Jeffrey Kahane as the orchestra's music director in 2006, continues to maintain the high standards set by his predecessor; like Kahane, he seems to have earned the trust of audience and musicians alike. He certainly gets the best from his players. Under his leadership, the ensemble is a flexible, responsive, and unified entity, one that seems capable of playing even the most challenging works with assurance. At Sunday's performance, Schubert's "Great" Symphony proved an excellent vehicle to demonstrate their capabilities. Ferrandis, a youthful, energetic podium presence, conducted like a man taking his first hot rod out for a spin, hugging the road in the score's streamlined passages and negotiating its hairpin turns with brio. His interpretation was everything the listener could want: forceful, dynamic, and richly textured, with keen attention given to matters of phrasing and tempo. The orchestra responded handsomely. The brass section was the standout, boldly asserting itself in the first movement's opening theme and sounding magnificent thereafter. For their part, the strings produced warm, burnished tone, and the woodwinds played with precision and expressiveness. Ferrandis conducted with urgency, but never pushed too hard. If he had a bit of trouble holding the threads together in the second movement, he put the details on gorgeous display nonetheless. No impediments were noticed in the Scherzo, where Ferrandis achieved a beguiling mix of exuberance and charm. The orchestra was simply at its best in that movement, playing with the kind of lilting, Viennese beauty that induces giddiness. The finale came across powerfully; brass and woodwinds did themselves proud once again, and Ferrandis dispatched the massive coda in a blaze of glory.

Disconcerting Solo Work

Alas, things didn't proceed as smoothly for the conductor in the concert's first half. With Gilles Apap as soloist, Berg's concerto represented the afternoon's low point.

Ferrandis conducted with assurance here, too, and the orchestra capably negotiated the work's discrete strains of lavish Romanticism and acerbic modernism. Apap gave a dismayingly lackluster performance. Perhaps the French-Algerian violinist was having a bad day, but his playing, marked by unrefined string sound, tonal lapses, and rhythmic imprecision, was decidedly under par. Apap's an eccentric onstage presence. Tall and rangy, he slouched onstage as if dressed for a rave; made offhand comments to the audience, the conductor, and the players; drifted away from the soloist's spot a couple of times; and generally disregarded the conductor. None of this would matter, of course, if his playing had excelled. Nigel Kennedy gets away with such antics all the time, but his impeccable technique prevails. With Apap, it was simply annoying. The violinist occasionally rose to the occasion — he sounded best in the sweet music of the Allegretto — but, for the most part, this was a disappointing performance. Berg deserves better. Apap returned for an encore, launching into a piece of fast-and-faster fiddling of the sort designed to excite audiences (and concert promoters). He didn't announce the work, but I'm told that it was his own composition, titled Transylvania Breakdown. A more sublime experience was had in the performance of Lontano. Ligeti's 1967 orchestral étude is a brilliant curtain-raiser, a shimmering effusion of subtle color and texture structured as a quiet canon. The Hungarian composer creates a dense web of polyphony in the 12-minute score. The progress is glacial, and the beauty lies in the details. Ferrandis brought them out wonderfully, and the audience gave the performance a deservedly warm reception.