Reviews: Fresh Music and a Fresh Face up North

Fresh Music and a Fresh Face up North

By Mark Alburger

San Francisco Classical Voice, Oct. 24, 2006

And Nathaniel said unto him, "Can any good thing come out of the Santa Rosa Symphony?" Philip saith unto him, "Come and see" (St. John 1:46, Revised Musical Version). So behold, we drove up the freeway, and quite a lot of good things we found in the Santa Rosa Symphony season opener on October 16.

Mind you, the concert hall, formerly the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, has been corporately rechristened the Wells Fargo Center. (What next? The Starbucks Coffee Cantata?) The hall is visible from the freeway, but not obvious from side streets, and the signage is questionable. Punky's Pumpkin Patch, adjacent to the venue, is more prominently identified. And at the side entrance, the "Thanks to our corporate sponsors" list takes precedence over the building's name.

Within, there is an intriguing concert space. Formerly a large auditorium-style church, the playing area is so cramped that Symphony musicians and even newly-appointed Music Director Bruno Ferrandis must enter from the audience and ascend stairs to the stage. This will soon change, however, as it was recently announced that the SRS, in collaboration with Sonoma State University, broke ground for the Green Music Center, a new performing home in Rohnert Park. You can only hope that the new hall will be as alive as the present one.

The right mix
Monday's concert was viscerally exciting, with a sonic presence that certainly rivals what you hear from the Marin Symphony, San Francisco Opera, Dominican University, San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra, Erling Wold Ensembles, and the Del Mar Players. That makes sense, as members of the Santa Rosa Symphony can also be found in many of the aforementioned. From a certain perspective, as commuting musicians crop up again and again in a variety of combinations, there is perhaps only one large, constantly mutating Bay Area Music Organization. The mixture that makes up the Santa Rosa Symphony is a strong one, and all indications suggest that the Algerian-French Ferrandis will make a telling mark on the local music scene.

The program led off with a dynamic reading of the Dmitri Shostakovich Festive Overture (1954). This bonbon, written in the year after the death of the composer's (and so many others') nemesis, Josef Stalin, can barely contain its celebratory mirth. It stands in marked contrast to many of his other works. The brass were brilliant, the strings crisp, and there were dizzying woodwind solos that made the head spin.

The twist on Shostakovich, yarned in Steven Ledbetter's program notes as "the greatest Russian composer of the 20th century," has the composer on the ascendant. In former years, the three biggies of the 20th century Russians were Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, and our man Dmitri — in that order, chronologically and in terms of reputation. While a majority would probably still keep Stravinsky at the head of the table, there's no question that Prokofiev's star has faded a bit.

So too, it seemed, for his Piano Concerto No. 2 (1923), although it was perhaps not a fair fight to program this considerably more serious work right after the Shostakovich’s fireworks. Nevertheless, after a lyrical opening, Prokofiev eventually provides some sardonic pyrotechnics of his own, here in the expert hands of Joyce Yang's impassioned playing. Yang breathed, emoted, caressed, and, when appropriate, pounded her way through this paradoxical work — all in perfect consort with the attentive care of Ferrandis and the orchestra. One of six in the Prokofiev canon, this atypical concerto (four, rather than the usual three movements) delighted gently and quixotically from beginning to end.

Bruno Ferrandis
Even more fireworks were offered in a splendid performance of the Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4 (1878), where listeners felt a fresh touch that made this tried-and-true work come alive as if it was a first hearing. You could hear the angst-ridden chromaticism as a harbinger of 20th- (and now 21st-) century neuroses. It was easy to understand why Stravinsky held the older composer in such high regard. Tchaikovsky has been held up as a less-progressive, more central-European collaborationist, especially when compared against the more forward-looking "Mighty Handful" or "Russian Five" (Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov). But there is nothing less contemporary in this composer's handling of melody and structure. All is clear and immediate, yet at the same time darkly woven and ever surprising. That craftsmanship and inspiration can walk in such close collaboration is truly inspiring.

The music was alive, and Ferrandis and the Santa Rosa Symphony made it so. In upcoming concerts, it looks like this group (ably conducted for years by the talented Jeffrey Kahane) will continue to delight, and will be worth the drive. But if you can't make it, you'll continue to hear some of SRS's players in some of the other finest ensembles around the Bay Area.

(Mark Alburger is an award-winning ASCAP composer of concert music published by New Music, editor-publisher of 21st-Century Music Journal, oboist, pianist, vocalist, and music critic.)