Memento mori, Benjamin Britten, Moore and more

It's been an interesting couple of weeks. On Saturday I was moving some things around between my apartment and a storage unit and I unexpectedly came across some mementos of the past- specifically from two years ago when my affair with the Femme Fatale was shifting into a different, more intense mode. Among them was a program from a concert by the New Century Chamber Orchestra, which took place almost two years ago to the day. That was a crazy time, full of irresponsible, decadent misbehaving, and we relished every minute of it. We spent two years trying to recapture the intensity of that moment, but in the end we failed, leaving a long wake of wreckage behind us, and as I was looking at the contents of this box, which were  all over the floor, I was reminded once again that one of the weirdest side-effects of writing this blog is how it marks time. Another year, another season opens, performances take place, then the season closes. Repeat. Live. Watch your life expire slowly before your eyes.

However, little of that was on my mind as I watched GG get off the bus later that same evening to meet me for this year's version of the same concert. There's just something about a six-foot-tall redhead in heels  which empties one's mind of almost everything else. We had dinner together, and afterward entered the outer lobby of the Herbst Theatre where I spotted a Renaissance man of my acquaintance. We chatted him up a bit before a young women who had just spent the summer as a Fellow at Tanglewood approached us and joined in the conversation. Then it was time to sit, and as we entered the auditorium, I was surprised to see a number empty seats- not many, mind you, but more than I expected.

The nineteen members of the New Century Chamber Orchestra began their 21st season with a tribute to Benjamin Britten in honor of the centennial of his birth. It's odd to think Britten could still be with us, like Elliot Carter is, had he possessed a stronger heart, and to wonder about what he would have composed in the last third of his life. This concert featured two of his works from the 1930s- still early in his career, but already well-established as a major composer.

It began with the Simple Symphony, the movements of which, like its title, are alliteratively named and this playfulness is infused throughout the work. Simple in this case, is somewhat misleading, because while it's easy to follow and engagingly melodic throughout, to create something as accessible and pleasing as this is no simple task. The second movement, played entirely pizzicato, was perhaps my favorite if for no other reason than I enjoyed the sheer novelty of it, though it also required the musicians to re-tune before the saraband of the third, somewhat breaking the spell. The "Frolicsome Finale" was played with New Century's usual vigor.

Speaking of vigor, the second work on the program was Bartók's Divertimento for String Orchestra (1939) was probably the best performance I've heard from this orchestra to date. While the title translates into "entertainment" there's a pervading seriousness to it all, which New Century exquisitely brought out during the second movement's adagio. How Bartók fit into a Britten celebration wasn't clear to me, but the result made it a moot point. This is a versatile group, but intense pieces like this, which require not only technical skill but true cohesion among players, bring out the best in them. The entire piece was just fantastic and I look forward to seeing the orchestra release a recording of it.

During the intermission, GG and I chatted with some of the usual suspects, and I was gently mocked for having a picture of me published in the newspaper on Friday, taken at last week's SF Symphony gala. It seems very few acquaintances of mine read the paper anymore, for no more than a handful at best mentioned having seen it. I only wish it was a better photo and that I had done a better job with my bow tie.

Soprano Melody Moore joined the orchestra for Britten's Les Illuminations (1939), which features excerpts of poems by Arthur Rimbaud set to nine pieces of  music. Moore was in full dramatic mode, matching vocal intensity with commanding physical presence for each piece. In the middle of the third (I think), three people with no clue about audience etiquette (or, assholes, if you will) returned late from intermission to take their seats in the second or third row. Why they had to disrupt the musicians and the audience instead of taking seats in the back is a good question for both the offenders and the Herbst ushers to answer. Moore and the orchestra played right through it, without letting any annoyance show. Now, I don't speak French, but I've heard enough of it, and with the text translations in my lap I still had a very difficult understanding Moore at times, while during others it was easier to discern what she was singing. The overall result was a strong one, but not enough to remove the Bartók as the evening's highlight.

There was an encore consisting of two ill-chosen spirituals featuring Moore and Music Director Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg.

The New Century Chamber Orchestra will return in mid-December to perform a program designed to show off their soloists featuring Vivaldi's Four Seasons alongside works by Handel, Clarice Assad, and Lera Auerbach. Tickets can be purchased here.

Quick takes from the weekend

The New Century Chamber Orchestra's season ending concert was Saturday night: Schoenberg's  Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) is the kind of music this ensemble does best and it was fantastic; ten minutes of variations on "Happy Birthday to You," not so much; Ellen Taafe Zwilich's Commedia d'ell Arte proved accessible, interesting and entertaining- a rare trifecta for contemporary premiere; Michelle Djokic probably has no idea how sexy she is with a tambourine in her hand.

The New York Philharmonic's first of two nights at Davies: if I described Magnus Lindberg's 2nd Piano Concerto as a mash-up of a 50's sci-fi movie soundtracks and Rachmaninoff you may not think that's a compliment, but it certainly is; Yefim Bronfman is simply f_cking amazing; the principal wind players of this orchestra are dazzlers, as is their brass section; that was an amazing Tchaik 4 and the finale went through the roof; a bit of Bernstein for the encore was a nice touch; Chloe Veltman looked pretty fetching in that hat.

The burgers at Flippers in Hayes Valley kind of suck but the waitresses are really kind. The food at Burmese Kitchen in the Tenderloin is a steal for how tasty it is. My mother is pretty much the only person I know who can get me to eat Popeye's fried chicken, which tastes much better in the South than it does in California. The Minister's Rebellious Daughter paid me the kindest of compliments when she said, "it's nice to see you're back." Lara Downes sent me an email, but I can't tell you what she wrote. There was an explosion of hits coming to A Beast from Thailand, all searching for images of "ASIAN NEWSWOMAN TURNS PORN SLUT"-what they found on arriving here was a picture of Linda Blair taken from "The Exorcist."

RIP Duck Dunn and my Aunt Rose.

Two wild girls- my grandmother on the left and her sister Rose on the right, circa 1935.

The New Century Chamber Orchestra begins their 20th season

The New Century Chamber Orchestra is beginning its 20th anniversary season and I caught their San Francisco concert last night at the Herbst (the ensemble routinely performs each program in four venues around the Bay Area- Berkeley, Palo Alto and San Rafael are the other locations).

By the time I parked my motorcycle behind the opera house I was pretty exhausted from the day's events and the preceding week in general, but I was looking forward to the performance, especially since I had read Josh Kosman's enthusiastic review of Thursday's concert earlier in the day.

The ensemble gave an energized, well-executed performance during the two-hour concert, no doubt influenced by having their former and founding Music Director Stuart Canin as the featured soloist in the second work on the program, Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in D minor (an early composition, written when he was just 13). His presence created a visible enthusiasm on the faces of the musicians- more than a few of them couldn't keep from smiling through much of the piece, frequently casting admiring glances at him. When it was finished, the response can only be described as extremely enthusiastic from the both audience and orchestra, including some stomping of feet on the stage. As for the work itself, it supports the case for claiming Mendelssohn a child prodigy equal to Mozart, but like most juvenilia, it made me wish that a more mature work was performed instead, though the Allegro had energy bursting from all quarters.

Before that came Ernest Bloch's Concerto Grosso for String Orchestra with Piano Obbligato, composed in 1925 with Bach in mind but with an eye firmly set toward the future.  I'm not too familiar with Bloch's work, and one of the pleasures of the New Century is they frequently program works by lesser-known composers and as a string orchestra, the works themselves fall outside the standard rep by default. It's almost a given I'm going to hear something for the first time at one of their concerts and that was the case here.

And what an interesting and engaging piece this is. It's certainly not a piano concerto, but the presence of the piano is noticeable throughout, the score constantly drawing attention to where it is within the orchestra. Miles Graber's playing was notable for its graceful, seamless integration into the whole. This must have been particularly challenging for him because the positioning of the piano precluded him from watching director Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg's lead, and to me it appeared he was listening to where everyone else was at all times, and perhaps that's why the whole sounded so perfectly balanced. Each of the work's four movements were notable but I especially liked the Dirge of the second.

Speaking of sounding perfectly balanced, some acoustic modifications have been made to the theater with the installation of some material above the stage which pushes the sound out into the audience with greater lushness than is usually heard in the room.

The second half of the program was devoted to yet another re-working of Bizet's Carmen score, this one by the Russian composer Rodion Shcherdrin as a ballet written for his wife. I wish composers would leave Carmen alone. The orchestra took the stage with each member wearing something red- a tie, a hair accessory, red tights, etc. I'm not sure what this bit of whimsy was supposed to achieve- a scarlet nod to opera's most famous femme fatale? A reference to the blood on the floor at the opera's conclusion? It seemed a little silly to me and caused me to reflect on how the orchestra could benefit from some glammimg up, which is a ridiculous thought, isn't it? But there you have it. Perhaps its best not to draw attention to what otherwise would have gone unnoticed.

Now I don't know why, but for the second time this week I found myself at a concert thinking of The Music Man of all things. The other night while listening to Mahler's 3rd over at Davies I was struck by how much a moment in the score reminded me of "Till There Was You" and last night I thought of "Marian the Librarian" during more than one part of Shchredrin's suite. I guess that's better than being reminded of "Pick-a-Little (Talk-a-Little)" or "Goodnight Ladies," but still. While the piece was played with a lot of enthusiasm and verve, the work itself, broken into thirteen parts featuring the most popular bits of Bizet's score reworked in ways that are sometimes clever and at others obvious, didn't engage me at all and wasn't helped by the breaks between the sections, which brought the flowing music to halt a dozen times. My reaction was definitely not felt by that vast majority of the audience, which ate the whole thing up with relish, but I would have preferred some real Meredith Wilson.

The orchestra repeats the concert tonight at 5:00 pm at the Osher Marin Jewish Community Center in San Rafael. See the website for ticket information.

Kicked off with verve

The New Century Chamber Orchestra

Kicking off their national tour last night in San Francisco, the New Century Chamber Orchestra gave a concert which was a pleasure from the first note to the last. Music Director and concertmaster Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg welcomed the audience and quipped that as the first show of the tour, it may be the worst. If this proves to be true, the audiences for future performances are in for lovely treat.

They began with Hugo Wolf's Italian Serenade (1887)- a jaunty dance featuring a lyrical solo by cellist Susan Babini and some lively interplay between Salerno-Sonnenberg and associate concertmaster Dawn Harms.

Next up was Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances. There are six individual sections to the whole, but one is very brief and the final two are played without pause, so it seems more like four. The first, "Jocul Cu Bata" is based on the Roma folk music that Bartok so brilliantly transformed into an entirely different genre without losing the essence of the music itself. The second dance, "Braul," was a slow, sad lament to my ears though the program notes claim a different intent. By this point I was somewhat lost in the music and not really paying attention to which dance was what and suddenly I was carried away into the sweeping rhythms of the final two, which ended with a lively, exuberant finish.

I would wager most of us in the Northern America are familiar with Astor Piazzolla's music through its use in tango and I hadn't heard the Four Seasons of Buenos Aires before. While the piece has moments that bear the distinct stamp of his slower songs you can dance to, this is a new Piazzolla to me. Fast, lively and dotted with quotes from Vivaldi's namesake work in each movement, this engaging piece was brilliantly performed and the audience loved it. The slow Invierno (Winter) section was especially beautiful. On a side note, this would have made an excellent addition to the program recently performed here by the Venice Baroque Orchestra of Vivaldi's and Phillip Glass' Four Seasons, called the Seasons Project .

After the intermission came Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings in C Major, a work full of lyrical romanticism the composer wrote in imitation of Mozart but bearing his own distinct lushness throughout. Salerno-Sonnenberg and Babini again shone throughout the piece, as did principal violist Cassandra Lynne Richburg. The two outer sections are melodic bookends to a delicate waltz and elegy, the latter being the spot where Richburg really made a lovely contribution.

The audience responded with tremendous enthusiasm, earning two encores: Schnittke's Polka and Gershwin's "Bess You is My Woman Now." I thought these may have been more effective had their order been switched, thus sending the audience out into the rain with a dance in their step instead of a ballad on the brain, but that's just me. Everyone I spoke with afterward agreed the concert was terrific and every piece on the program worked well. Based on the first night, it looks like NCCO has a tremendously successful seven-date tour coming up. The Orchestra is performing in Cleveland, Chicago, Ann Arbor, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Davis. You can find the dates and locations here.

Afterwards, GG and I went to Absinthe for drinks, while Axel and his companions went off to what was hopefully presumed to be a less-crowded Sauce. As I was telling Axel about my latest bad experience with a bartender, this time at Sauce a couple of weeks ago (which you'll learn of once I am completely caught up here), he wondered aloud why I had such bad luck with bartenders. I can't say, other than I am particular about certain things and think it fair to expect that if I'm willing to pay $10 for a drink the bartender should a) know how to make it; b) serve it in a timely manner; c) remember that I asked for a twist and not a cherry and finally d), not get indignant when I return the incorrectly-made drink. Is that asking for too much in San Francisco? Apparently it is in some establishments. That's not the case however, at Absinthe, where the service is always excellent, the staff efficient and the drinks are always well-made. They also have interesting and tasty snacks at the bar until 1:00, so I like the joint- a lot.

The best part however, was the company and conversation. GG, you've been missed.

LIVE: Barber, Strauss, Mahler

Sometime in late November publicists for the New Century Chamber Orchestra asked if I would be interested in reviewing the orchestra's new CD. I immediately responded yes- no one's ever asked me to review a classical CD before and having recently seen them perform I thought it would be an interesting challenge. A day or two later I received the CD in the mail and when I opened it and looked at the titles I thought to myself this is too close to the holidays to listen to this and have any sort of response that won't be maudlin at best, suicidal at worst.

So I placed it in a corner along with the PR materials and let it sit. Through Thanksgiving, through Hanukkah, through Christmas, through New Year's. The guilt compounded. Such nice folks to send me a copy and here I am, afraid to listen to it, just waiting for the right moment. Finally I decided this was the week. Well, yesterday I heard a 40 year-old neighbor of mine was found dead in her apartment, then came news Gerry Rafferty died, reminding me a certain girl from my long-lost-youth, and more directly of my long-lost-youth having sex with this particular girl, and then the Femme Fatale gets all jittery on me and so I come home after a trip to BevMo and decide tonight's the night (the poor people at NCCO are probably never going to ask me to attend or review anything again after this but they should have known what they were getting into- this isn't your average classical music blog- but you can go here and here if you want a more straightforward review).

After pouring a stiff one, I insert the disc, which is a live recording of Barber's Adagio for Strings, Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen for 23 Solo Strings and Mahler's Adagietto from his Fifth Symphony. If you already know this music, and surely you know the Barber at least (and you do even if you think you don't), you can easily understand why this bunch didn't exactly leap out and say "play this and get in the mood for the holidays!"

Barber's Adagio suffers from the overexposure weighing down a select, though large, group of classical compositions that makes it difficult to separate what we've been culturally bludgeoned to associate it with upon hearing from how the work actually makes us respond to it on its own terms. This recording remedies that to certain degree, though I can't tell if it's by design or just fortuitous good luck. It's Barber alright, and of course its painful and beautiful, but it's also a bit raw and in your face- as if to say "yes, you've heard this a thousand times but pay attention to this." What that is, in the hands of this orchestra, is an Adagio resisting the maudlin, intent on drawing out the pathos of the piece. If it's not beautiful in certain moments, it certainly in an arresting performance that grabs one's attention, making me feel as if I was hearing this overly familiar work from someone who didn't want it to sound reassuring or even worse, sad, but wanted the listener to feel it resonate within them. It forsakes prettiness for potency- and in these times that's a welcome substitute.

Strauss' Metamorphosen for 23 Solo Strings, written during WWII when the composer was nearing 80 years old, is a threnody for what was lost at the hands of the Third Reich. At least that's always been my take on it- I don't care if you disagree. It has a unique structure- a work for 23 strings which rarely play together in anything resembling a melody you might expect. Broken down into various groups and combinations, this is serious regret writ large upon Beethoven's, not Hitler's corpse. It's also the recording which inspired this disc, according to Nadja Salero-Sonnenberg, for which she sought other performances/pieces to match it (hence my holiday aversion). The opening is beautiful, evoking a sense of loss and bewilderment- a tone which NCCO carries throughout the piece as it winds its way between the influence of Beethoven and Wagner before traversing a more modernist path, ending in ambiguous notes suggesting what lies ahead remains unable to be seen, perhaps best not to think about, like an inconclusive conversation between lovers at a crossroads.

I recently saw NCCO  give an impressive performance of  the Adagietto, which worked incredibly well in a live setting, but taking a single movement from a larger work is tricky business in a recording. These 10 minutes of Mahler leave me wanting what comes before and after, something beyond what NCCO can deliver.

The New Century Chamber Orchestra will begin a national tour on February 1st, with a local performance at Herbst on Saturday, January 29th, featuring the tour repertoire, including audience favorite Four Seasons of Buenos Aires by Astor Piazzolla and Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. Tickets can be had here.

The New Century Chamber Orchestra with Edgar Meyer

This past Saturday night I attended my first concert by the New Century Chamber Orchestra. This ensemble had been on my radar for awhile and when their opening concert with bassist Edgar Mayer showed up on Goldstar I decided to take the plunge and see what they were about. Two days later their publicist sent me an email asking if I would like to attend the show. Such timing! I accepted and asked the Femme Fatale if she would like to join me and there was an extra ticket available if it would help her smooth the path to her attending. She readily accepted and proceeded to work her intricate machinations which in the end failed but didn't prevent her from attending the performance.

The NCCO, led by music director Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, is a chamber orchestra and performs without the benefit of a conductor. This presents myriad challenges and my first thought after hearing them is that this is a very well-tuned, refined machine- a group of musicians who are able to pull off this challenge with apparent effortlessness. This isn't easy to do, and it's the one reason I never attend the annual Itzhak Perlman concerts at Davies with the SFS because I think he is terrible at trying to pull off this feat.

But I digress.

Saturday's season opener presented a varied program that evolved into a surprisingly coherent concert. The first piece was Rossini's Sonata in G Major, written by the composer at the ripe age of 12. Many of the "cognoscenti" of classical music and opera, both now and in Rossini's time, write Rossini off as a light-weight. Personally I think this is ridiculous. The composer of Turco, Barbiere, Italiana, Stabat Maater, Viaggio, Cenerentola and so many more certainly took the easy route many times, recycling this and that, but always recycling something of his own that was brilliant to start with. Nobody complains when Scorcese, Tarantino, Leonard Cohen or Phillip Glass does this, so why does the stigma attach itself to Rossini so easily?
In the hands of the NCCO, a pretty strong case was made for this work, with its flowing melody. Nothing profound, but a lovely to piece to stretch out for the opener. Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg then introduced bassist Edgar Meyer with unconcealed delight. Meyer strode onstage looking a bit like a college professor in his baggy slacks, ill-fitting blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a yellow bow tie. He nodded to Anthony Manzo, the NCCO's bass player, and began to play Bach. I don't know enough Bach to know if this suite was written for the bass, but to me it sounded like one of the cello suites and if it wasn't there were certainly many parts of it that overlapped with those familiar works. Meyer leans into his instrument, leaning on it actually, and its interesting to watch how he physically melds his body to the instrument, as if he wants to feel everything its producing under his hands. The Femme Fatale described it as dancing in place with it I believe, and I think it's an apt description.

Meyer and the orchestra then performed Bottesini's Concerto for String Bass No. 2 in B minor. Like Meyer, Bottesini was regarded as one of the most talented bass players of his day. I found Meyer's playing to be completely absorbing and while the orchestra followed him well, but they never felt completely in sync, establishing the interplay which makes the concerto format work. Meyer played, they followed. Part of the problem may be the piece itself, which has plenty of highpoints for the soloist (I believe the cadenzas were Meyer's own) but apart from that, it isn't that memorable.

As an encore, Meyer returned to the stage without his bow and gave a free-form, funk-based jazz improvisation which demonstrated his formidable skills. It was a puzzling choice to me, because while it showed off a different side of his musicianship, considering the three pieces together blurred my vision of  who Meyer is as an artist rather than clarified it.

After the intermission the orchestra performed Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony in C minor (Op. 110a, arranged by Rudolf Barshai). This was thrilling. Based on the Eighth String Quartet, the piece is somber and moody until it bursts into wild, mad frenzy that had Salerno-Sonnenberg coming off of her seat to play fierce punctuations during the churning second movement which has scorching elements from the Eighth Symphony incorporated into it.

The final piece was Mahler's Adagietto from Symphony No. 5. This was beautifully played, with the orchestra completely in sync, and the interplay among them fascinating to watch, but even better to hear. The movement's romantic lyricism had with a great tenderness that actually benefited from being played by a smaller orchestra

The New Century Chamber Orchestra will have three more programs this season. The next one features works by composer Mark O'Connor and Bach:

Open rehearsal: Monday, November 15 at 10am, Herbst Theatre

Thursday, November 18 at 8pm, First Congregational Church
Friday, November 19 at 8pm, First United Methodist Church
Saturday, November 20 at 8pm, Herbst Theatre
Sunday, November 21 at 5pm, Osher Marin Jewish Community Center