San Francisco Classical Voice, May 18, 2003

Putting together orchestral programs is a complex art (see this week's editorial for a few of the difficulties). Jeffrey Kahane's Santa Rosa Symphony programs tend to be deliberately and rather obviously "designed" ÷ meant to draw connections among the component pieces, organized around a theme or (sometimes) two. In this last set (I heard the performance on Sunday, 5/18), the theme was Italy: first as envisioned by Hector Berlioz in his Harold in Italy, then in Respighi's Feste romane (Roman Festivals). 
 
It's not for nothing that orchestral players call Respighi's Roman trilogy "The Tourist Traps of Rome." For all the brilliance of the orchestration, there's a cheap, flash character to a lot of the music that can be irritating, in a way that the less overtly "monumental" Respighi ÷ say, the Trittico Botticelliano or the Ancient Airs and Dances or Il tramonto ÷ is not. Feste romane, in particular, is that sorry thing, a soundtrack written before its movie. There must have been a time when it was possible to think of it as a "Poema sinfonico"; but by now a good chunk of the average audience probably puzzles through "Circenses" (Circuses) wondering which scene of "Gladiator" it belongs to. (The third movement's mandolin episode would occasion a similar but more difficult effort of memory, strumming mandolinists being too blatant a clichˇ to appear anywhere but in old movies or Authentic Italian Masterworks ca. Mussolini.)

Thematic programming apart, Feste romane seemed a strange choice for Kahane ÷ it's not a work I'd expect him (based on his own past programs) to admire, nor one that the Santa Rosa Symphony was especially prepared to tackle. (It may be "cheap," but it isn't easy, and it's full of effects that pretty well demand a virtuoso orchestra in order to come off properly.) As it happened, Santa Rosa did a creditable job of it.

"Frantic clamor"

The "Circenses," granted, was a bit of a mess. Three "buccine" (Respighi was trying to simulate Roman war trumpets; here, as usual, they were standard B-flat trumpets) played from an upper balcony, with tone and intonation that might have carried verisimilitude just a little too far. Things were none too orderly at ground level either. There was some of the same disarray in the final "La Befana" (Epiphany), but there it was all to the good; disarray ("clamore frenetico," or "frantic clamor" ÷ to quote Respighi's own note) is what the movement's about, and Santa Rosa's din deserved the whopping ovation it got Sunday. In between came "L'Ottobrata" (The October Festival) with its mandolin solo. And, before that, "Il Giubileo" (The Jubilee), the one really original stretch of music in the whole piece and also the one that got the best performance, subtle and mysterious, with its creeping strings and uncanny, dense chords among the double basses.

Harold ought to have been easier going for the orchestra than Feste romane ÷ for one thing, it's played much more often; for another, there just aren't as many notes ÷ but it didn't sound that way. The Santa Rosa players did do well by the first two movements, especially the second movement's procession of pilgrims, where there was some lovely quiet playing from strings and winds alike. But in the third movement the winds and the violas were pathetically out of sync ÷ sometimes within a section, never mind between the two. And the orgiastic brigands of the finale were as rowdy as the Epiphany revelers of the Feste romane, but unfortunately Berlioz's orgies, unlike Respighi's, really do require discipline.

A solid substitute soloist

Linda Ghidossi-DeLuca, the Santa Rosa principal violist, was originally slated to play the solo part in the Berlioz, but as she is off on tour (reportedly playing with the Dixie Chicks ÷ yes, really), a substitute had to be found, and Nokuthula Ngwemyama, the fine young violist who appeared three years ago with Santa Rosa in a brilliant performance of the Walton Concerto, was unexpectedly available. If her Harold was less spectacular than her Walton, it might be because there's less in the piece to be spectacular with. She certainly made a firm, attractive, vibrant sound, and tackled the few flashy moments with gusto. It seemed to me, though, that she was less of a personality than she could have been. Maybe she took Berlioz's own description of Harold as a bystander rather than a participant a little too much to heart.

It was a pity that the harp and viola couldn't have been closer together, as Berlioz asks, and that the offstage strings at the end of the finale weren't offstage but were the principal strings. How hard would it have been to send a quartet off to the balcony where the buccine played later on, or at least to have had them file offstage and play from behind the curtain?

As so often with programs beginning with a recent work, it was only after hearing the rest of the program that you could guess how the rehearsal time had been allocated. Christopher Rouse's Rapture (2000) was the opener, and it deserved the attention that had clearly been lavished on it. It begins from a deep C pedal in the low strings, horns entering with a noble mien as though this were a Mahler or Sibelius symphony. From then on it's all a slow acceleration, through fascinating textures (like the tangle of flutes a little further on) and violent ones (like the percussion barrage near the end), all the way to an ecstatic final F-major chord ÷ a gigantic, ten-minute-long authentic cadence. It was the end of the Respighi that actually got the standing ovation, but it was the Rouse that most deserved it.

(Michelle Dulak, editor of San Francisco Classical Voice, is a violinist and violist who has written about music for Strings, Stagebill, Early Music America, and the New York Times.)

©2003 Michelle Dulak, all rights reserved