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This Bay Area event was founded 28 years ago by George Cleve, their music director and conductor. The various concerts are presented in small venues, providing a more intimate setting for Mozart's work. All told, the festival is only eight engagements, though they are performing the Requiem in a special program for the latter half of the year. Program II included the overture of the opera Lucio Silla; Piano Concerto No. 25 in C Major, K. 503; and Symphony No. 39 in E-Flat Major, K. 543.
Lucio Silla was first performed in Milan on December 26, 1772. The libretto is based on the life of Lucius Cornelius Sulla. The overture is resembles a minute symphony, three movements in an Italian manner. It is airy and light, full of cheer. The Piano Concerto No. 25 in C Major, K. 503 was disappointing. Not as far as Mozart is concerned, since I could not even begin to comprehend the music. I don't think I've ever had such a horrible experience hearing Mozart played on piano, my right eyelid actually twitched once during the first movement. Claude Frank was the pianist, and he has a rather distinguished career, having played with many wonderful orchestras all over the globe. However, I found his playing unsuited for Mozart, the notes all ran together in a drippy sodden fashion, made all the worse by incessant humming. I wondered to myself if I just didn't understand what was going on, so after the concert I located a live recording of Alfred Brendel playing the same piece in Strasbourg with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields from 1978. I found that I much prefer Brendel to Frank, to say the least.
Thankfully, the performance of Symphony No. 39 in E-Flat Major, K. 543 was rather better. This symphony is unpopular, the least performed of Mozart's last six symphonies. There is something of yearning in the piece that is very lovely. The third movement, an Allegretto, seemed so strangely short. The symphony's ending also seemed abrupt.
At the beginning of the month I made my way south to hear the Los Angeles Master Chorale perform Haendel's Israel in Egypt. The piece, written in 1738, is the first of the English oratorios that Haendel was the one to compose, the most famous being Messiah, though he had around thirty oratorios all together.
Israel in Egypt deals with the Exodus story of the Old Testament, and only from the side of the Israelites. It employs the chorus quite a lot, though there are some duets, solo airas, and solo recitatives. There were four soloists, and two others that rounded out a soprano duet and a bass duet. Most everyone who performed had a beautiful voice. I especially liked the countertenor Steven Rickards. Tenor Jonathan Mack, who also sings at Los Angeles Opera on occasion, was least impressive of all. His voice simply sounded weak in comparison to the other soloists. I just listened to a clip from the prologue of Biggs' Songs Of Laughter, Love, And Tears, in which Mack sings, and his voice isn't bad, it just isn't spectacular either. Jinyoung Jang, who sang in the bass duet, seemed rather pleased to be the subject of our rapt attention. What a ham! His voice was nice though.
For some reason, I was not expecting the text to be in English, which is rather silly of me. But it isn't as if one can really make out the words that well anyway. I quite like the oratorio as a form, it is less disconcerting than opera since there is no set, drama, or choreography to worry about.
In all, it was marvelous. Georg Friedrich Haendel is rather underrated, due to his temporal proximity to the great Johann Sebastian Bach. They were both born in 1685 CE, 50 miles apart from each other, the former in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt; the latter in Eisenach, Thuringia.
In the last month I've seen Herbert Blomstedt conduct the San Francisco Symphony twice. Blomstedt was the Music Director here for a decade, but is currently at the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (Leipzig is a city in Saxony, Germany). He was born in Massachusetts but grew up in Sweden. He has been knighted in both Sweden and Denmark. Unlike Michael Tilson Thomas, Blomstedt's photograph did not appear on the cover of the programs.
Earlier this month was Bruckner's Fifth Symphony. I know almost nothing about Joseph Anton Bruckner, except that he was Austrian and influenced by Beethoven and Wagner. The piece was beautiful and had a sense of wholeness. It just seemed like its own very self-contained world, and was very consistent with itself. Apparently, Symphony No. 5 in B flat Major was never heard by the composer himself, unless one counts the two-piano reading given in Vienna in 1887.
Last weekend we went to hear Mozart's Symphony No. 35 in D Major. It was gorgeous, and made me quite giddy. I was annoyed, however, when someone's cell phone rung during the third movement. Said person also arrived approximately 1 minute before the performance started and coughed a great deal.
The Mozart symphony was short, and they also played Mendelssohn's Concerto No. 2 in D Minor for Piano and Orchestra, Opus 40. It started off nicely, the pianist, Jonathan Biss, was rather accomplished. The second and third movements were not as nice as the first one, but overall it was enjoyable.
The concert ended with Haydn's Symphony No. 102 in B-flat Major. This symphony is one of the twelve so-called "London" symphonies that were written for his two trips to London, the first of which was from 1791 to 1792 and the second from 1794 to 1795. This was after Prince Nicholas Esterházy, Haydn's patron of almost 30 years, died, and Haydn was more free to explore musically.
This symphony was better than I expected, since I didn't have much of an opinion either way on Haydn before. I especially liked the cello solo in the second movement.
So I managed to go hear the San Francisco Bach Choir perform Johann Sebastian Bach's Mass In B Minor. It was at St. Ignatius Church, built between 1910 and 1914 in a style reminiscent of the Baroque. The inside is very pretty, and the nave reminds me of the Pantheon in Rome.
Mass in B Minor is simply an amazing work. It is very balanced, symmetrical, and whole. The work is in seven keys, not just in B minor, these others being G minor, F# minor, A major, D major, E minor, and G major.
Unfortunately, it did become apparent during the performance that the SF Bach Choir is a community based art organization with volunteer singers. Most obvious to me were the problems of timing, though there were some intonation problems as well. However, mezzo-soprano Miriam Abramowitsch has a fine voice, the best of the leads, though she was a tad quiet.
Saturday we went to the San Francisco Symphony to hear Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde with a friend and another beautiful girl. Yet another lovely girl in an absurd magenta velvet gown lost her shoe on the stairs in front of me, which I caught and handed to her. Girls wear impractical shoes. Why is that?
Unfortunately, I was not aware that the program included Schoenberg, or maybe I just forgot. It doesn't seem like something I would forget, but memory is a strange thing. My opinion on Schoenberg has been solidified. His music made the bones on the left side of my face ache. In a way, this is probably for the best, or else I would have to control my mirth and scorn. A person behind me would chuckle softly in between movements. I must say that the audience was very quiet and well-behaved.
Before the regular program began, we were treated to a performance of Schoenberg's Opus 43b, Theme and Variations. Opus 43a was originally for band, and it could be heard. Then they played Schoenberg's 5 Pieces for Orchestra, Opus 16.
Das Lied von der Erde consists of songs with words from six poems translated from a French translation of Chinese into to German by Hans Bethge, published in 1907. I am told that this work is more symphonic than a song cycle. The singing is traded off between a tenor and a baritone (or sometimes an alto). The tenor, Michael Schade, was a little low on volume, and seemed overwhelmed by the orchestra. The baritone, Thomas Hampson, sang well, though his pronunciation of the German wasn't as perfect as Schade's. Not surprising, Hampson is from Spokane, Washington, and Schade is a German-Canadian.
As for the music, I especially liked the second movement, "Der Einsame im Herbst." The final movement was somewhat tedious, disconnected, and a strange way to end.
The weekend concert featured the soprano Alison Buchanan and the baritone Abraham Lind-Oquendo, accompanied by piano. The baritone sang an aria cut out of Così fan tutte, some Schumann and Strauss, and Ravel. The soprano sang an aria from Handel's Samson, some Schumann, and some Poulenc. Together they sang from Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia.
Lind-Oquendo's voice was quiet, but he had a charming stage-presence. Buchanan's voice was beautiful, and she had good control of her volume. Her singing of Handel was the highlight of the evening. I dislike both Ravel and Poulenc, this is not surprising, though I had no definite opinion before. We left at the intermission because the rest of the concert included Copland and Gershwin.
Predictably enough, we sat in front of a child of near the age of 8. She
talked, played with the Velcro on her jacket, sang along, and finally fell
asleep.
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