Monthly Archives: November 2024

Itzhak Perlman & Friends, Nov. 10, 2024

Itzhak Perlman & Friends: It was the Top of musical performance. Itzhak Perlman is the great violinist who is also the Great Human. He clearly loves to make each note, they are always perfect, and loving the music is the same as his love of the audience. The audience feels that in each note that they hear and absorb. If you are Itzhak Perlman, your friends are breath taking artists, too. In this phenomenal performance his friends were two of the world’s greatest pianists, Emanuel Ax and Jean-Ives Thibaudet, and the Juilliard String Quartet. This is a new generation Juilliard String Quartet. Bringing these gifted musicians onto the stage to make music with Perlman expands his repertory possibilities.

Itzhak Perlman, Violinist, humanitarian, mentor, founder of the Perlman Music Program which mentors “gifted young string players.”

The program presented two works from the 18th century: Sonata for Two Violins in E minor, Opus 3, no. 5, by Jean-Marie Leclair, written ca. 1734; and Piano Quartet inE-flat major, K.493, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, written 1786. A 19th century masterpiece filled the second half of the program: Concert in D major, Opus 21, by Ernest Chausson, written in 1889-91. What is the main thing these three compositions have in common? Each piece is amongst the most difficult of its kind.

Areta Zhulla, Violinist, first violin of the Juilliard String Quartet

Jean-Marie Leclair, composer (1697 – 1764)*

Leclair left his home in Lyon to publish his compositions of violin sonatas. In Lyon, he became a master of the violin, dancing, and lace-making, a thorough artist. In Paris, his violin compositions were praised with one slight problem; they were so hard to play. A writer of Leclair’s time called them “a sort of musical algebra capable of rebuffing the most courageous of musicians.” The duet performance by Areta Zhulla and Itzhak Perlman was dazzling. I especially admired the way the music weaved between each violin. There would be a place where one violin would find a place to enter and play into, with, or around the other one. !8th century dances had intricate patterns; sometimes it is the music that follows the dance. As a dance master, he would have the music in his body. Now that I know he was a lace-maker, I feel sure that the design of the music and the playing of the violins were tracing movements of the needle and thread in and out to make a challenging, mathematical, beauty. It is there physical to touch in lace, audible and seen in the playing of the music.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, composer (1756 – 1791)*

Emanuel Ax, pianist

Mozart’s Piano Quartet in E-flat major, K. 493 was a stunning marvel. The musicians are perfection, a word I rarely use. I have loved this particular quartet for a long time. I went to Tower Records – I did say a long time ago – in North Beach and read through album covers. I chose a record (stop laughing) of Mozart’s quartets. When I heard the opening notes of this performance, I felt myself smile all over. The performers were truly perfection: Itzhak Perlman, violin; Molly Carr, viola; Astrid Schween, ‘cello; Emanuel Ax, piano. When Mozart had a publishing deal for three quartets, the publisher paid Mozart not to compose more. In fact, the publisher thought the first piano quartet was not well received. Fortunately for Mozart and all of us, he had finished the second Piano Quartet. It must have been a very good time for Mozart’s composing as this work entered Mozart’s catalogue just after the Marriage of Figaro. Although its brilliance was obvious, this Quartet was too difficult. A writer for a German journal wrote this: “Many another piece keeps some countenance, even when indifferently performed; but, in truth one can hardly bear listening to this product of Mozart’s when it falls into mediocre amateurish hands and is negligently played.” The performance I heard kept me on the edge of the seat. It is lush, sometimes mysterious with changing rhythms, and a fascinating exchange among the players. Is it possible to translate musical talk to spoken English? No, that is why it is music. The final movement features the pianist and first violin. What an experience to hear this from them.

Jean-Ives Thibaudet, Pianist

Ernest Chausson, composer (1855 – 1899)*

Chausson’s Concert in D major, Opus 21 is powerful and full of wonders. Concert is not a typo; it is a name for chamber music in the late 18th c. I knew his name, may have heard other pieces and may have not. Surely, I had never heard this. It is a gigantic and altogether successful creation performed by Itzhak Perlman, violin; Jean-Ives Thibaudet, piano; and the Juilliard Quartet. The music pays attention to the combinations that are well knit for all six instruments becoming one while each is heard. James M. Keller cites Chausson’s mentoring by Caesar Franck, and yet this work is still Chausson’s. Each of the four movements – Decide, Sicillienne, Grave, and Finale – added drama and character with their strong presence. The Sicillienne is beautiful in its sweeping lyricism. Grave lowers one’s feelings to a mysterious sense of loss. The energetic Finale reminds the listener of the themes of all three that came before. This listener felt her eyes open wide at the sensational Thibaudet playing precisely and powerfully. He was brilliant; Perlman was brilliant. Having both together made me want to jump up and down, but I only stood and applauded like the entire audience kept doing for many curtain calls. Many. I thought I would count, but I gave up. All six of the performers joined in an extraordinary encore and more bows and applause. Someone turned the lights back on, and, reluctantly we got the message that we had to go home.

*These composers share dreadful and inexplicable deaths. I am inserting this here so that it will not be the sad subject at the end of this post. No interpretation of the deaths from me. Jean-Marie Leclair was murdered. He lived in a bad neighborhood. He had been stabbed three times and was found in a pool of blood. It is still an open case in Paris. Three suspects: his gardener found the body; his nephew wanted Leclair to help him become a violinist but Leclair did not; Louise, an ex-wife who inherited his estate and sold off his property. Mozart died of illness; there are more than 100 theories of how he died. Chausson was trying out the new gizmo: a bicycle. He lost control of the bike, ran into a brick wall, cracked his skull. Imagine that each one would have composed more wonderful music; I am grateful for what I heard.

EMANUEL AX: A NIGHT TO REMEMBER

The great pianist, Emanuel Ax, performed a great program at San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall. The audience was completely packed with music lovers, and Ax has dedicated classical groupies. He certainly made more on October 27. The program contained wonderful music by Beethoven and Schumann, pieces many in the audience thought they knew, and two pieces by Arnold Schoenberg, which Ax helped the audience to know better and enjoy them.

Emanuel Ax, Piano

Ax opened with Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 13 in E-flat major, Opus 27, no. 1, Quasi una fantasia. In his first 11 sonatas, Beethoven presented sonatas which adhere to the Classical form: 3 or 4 movements which are made of exposition, development, and recapitulation. Beethoven broke the form in Sonatas 12, 13, and 14. The Sonatas number 13 and 14 are put together as Opus 27; both were written in 1801. They are different from each other except for the freedom of composition they share. Ax’s approach to Sonata No. 13 was masterful. This Sonata is seldom given great attention because its sibling, The Moonlight Sonata, is bigger, beautiful in different way, and toweringly difficult. No. 13 could be heard as a sonata with breaks between the movements or played with each running through the next, in fantasia style. It is a bright musical experience which I treasure for exactly the way program author James M. Keller describes it: “this is such a willfully eccentric piece that one may reasonably prefer to consider it a single onrushing conception, more fantasy than sonata.” I choreographed this music as a solo dance and felt that in the final movements the dance would need to just keep going up; so I flew before an eccentric, rhythmic, somewhat folkish finale. It is Beethoven’s imaginative fantasy: playful, joyful, shining a serious light on the sonata.

Ludwig van Beethoven, composer ( 1770 – 1827)

The Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Opus 27, no. 2, Moonlight brought us into another musical world. This sonata begins with nature at dusk. We hear the night fall into the music, the branches sway, the spirits float above a lake. Through decades after Beethoven’s death, writers wrote that the sonata is about night near a lake with moonlight shimmering on the water. It is nearly impossible to shake the 19th century writers’ impression, now in the 21st. It is emotional while the sounds touch on the clarity of moonlight. This sonata also uses the fantasia style for breaks between movements; that style being not to have a break between movements. That happens between the first movement, Adagio sostenuto, and the second one, Allegretto. Mr. Keller quoted Liszt that the Allegretto is a “flower between two chasms.” There is a normal break before the Presto agitato ending. We are not left Romantically alone by a lake, perhaps feeling just a little glum, aware of the beauty around us, but realizing one can feel the spirits floating around the dark pines only so long. The final movement picks up the rhythms with force. It dances to the quickly rising and falling music as moonlight beams. Emanuel Ax played the delicate, powerful, gorgeous music with perfection. He seems to understand what is in the depths of the music.

Arnold Shoenberg, composer, (1874 – 1951)

Fortunately for the audience, Emanuel Ax spoke to us to explain what happens in the two selections by Schoenberg. The first one, Drei Klavierstucke, Opus 11 (1909), was played between the two Beethoven sonatas. The second opened the second half of the concert. Ax played Sechs kleine Klavierstuck, Opus 19 (1911) before Schumann’s Fantasy in C major, Opus 17. He advised the audience that one does not need to think these approaches to music require mathematical brilliance. Instead, Schoenberg lets expression, emotion, even the concept of free association into the tightly composed sounds. That changed everything about listening to Schoenberg. In both pieces, I tried to hear the single musical sound and imagine what it was. Both of the pieces were intensely packed with memories, visions, experience. Schoenberg’s thoughts and attitudes were there for us to look at from every direction and begin to understand that sound can be real atoms of life.

Emanuel Ax, 2015

Robert Schumann, composer, (1810 – 1856)

It made me happy to know that Schumann’s Fantasy in C major, Opus 17 was the anchor of the program. It is a big work. Passionate, poetic, inventive music rolls forward and embraces its creator. He is forever the Romantic composer of the Romantic era and the romantic man who was in love with Clara Wieck. Her father forbid her to see her dear Robert. She was widely recognized as the finest pianist of Europe. Her father sent her off on another tour to Dresden to keep her well known and away from her love. That was 1836. In 1838, he wrote to her about the Fantasy he was writing: “the first movement is the most passionate thing I have ever composed –a deep lament for you.” The next year he wrote, “In order to understand the Fantasie you will have to transport yourself into the unhappy summer of 1836, when I renounced you.” While their married life was a triumph for both of them, I was happy to hear this major work from Schumann because some classical music fans seem to be fascinated by Schumann more for the mysteries of his mental illness than the grand music he made. I think he is being championed by several artists and conductors now. Schumann described two imagined characters in his essays and compositions. Florestan is the more aggressive one, and Eusebius is often off in a dream or aligned with more tranquil music. In this Fantasy, the Florestan rules the first movement and Eusebius is also there for a section named The Sound of a Myth. The poetry of this music is not always dreamy and calm; poetry can be powerful, too. Schumann placed a poem by Friedrich Schlegel at the beginning of this score. “Through all the sounds in earth’s motley dream, one soft note can be heard by him who listens stealthily.” For the pianist, this Fantasy is an extreme challenge to the best of technicians. Emanuel Ax played it as Schumann would want it to be. It was thrilling.

The audience went crazy for Emanuel Ax. He gave us two encores. After several curtain calls, he played Schubert’s Standchen, a song which Franz Liszt transcribed for the piano. Everyone continued applauding. Ax left again and came back to play Chopin’s Nocturne Opus 27, No. 1. It was beautiful. No one wanted to leave.

AMERICAN MUSIC AT DAVIES SYMPHONY HALL & Rhapsody in Blue’s 100th Year

October 25 and 26 were spectacular nights of music. Nights of what George Gershwin called “our undiluted national pep.” The San Francisco Symphony’s program included Suite from Candide, by Leonard Bernstein; Rhapsody in Blue, by George Gershwin (orch. Ferde Grofe); Wood Notes, by William Grant Still; and Porgy and Bess, A Symphonic Picture, by George Gershwin (arr. Robert Russell Bennett). Each piece was thrilling and innovative. Each one came out of a different decade: Candide, written in 1956 (arr. Charlie Harmon 1998); Rhapsody in Blue, composed in 1924 (rev. 1926); Wood Notes, composed in 1947; Porgy and Bess, A Symphonic Picture, written in 1935 (arr. 1943).

The pianist for Rhapsody in Blue was Michelle Cann. She is an astounding soloist who gave us all the rhythm, excitement, and gorgeous music possible in this heroic composition.

The conductor was Thomas Wilkins. In addition to being handsome with an elegant presence, he absolutely kept the SF Symphony at their best throughout the concert. It is easy to visualize each composer nodding his head in gratitude for Maestro Wilkins’ loyalty to exactly what each one wanted his music to be. A conductor par excellence: the principal conductor at the Hollywood Bowl, artistic advisor to the Boston Symphony, principal guest conductor of the Virginia Symphony, and the Henry A. Upper Chair of orchestral conducting at Indiana. There is more. He was the director of the Omaha Symphony until 2021. And more. We hope the SFS will bring him back soon.

Leonard Bernstein, composer, (1918 – 1990)

Bernstein must have studied Voltaire’s 18th century book or at least knew what it was about. There was a popular philosophy at that time that this is “the best of all possible worlds.” Candide was a young man who was relentlessly optimistic. His reward was being beat up by a huge flood and mean humans. Since it was an operetta, I have wondered why I had only heard a section of the music on the radio but not a single lyric. The Broadway show was a flop. A major problem was the lyrics. The playwright, Lilian Hellman, was the source of the concept, but it did not work. When it was being written, the McCarthyism of the early 1950s cast a long and scary shadow. Other outstanding authors contributed lyrics for the songs. It died by Hellman’s seriousness. Bernstein thought he would have a comic operetta. After years, one could applaud Bernstein’s optimism and determination. Candide came back to life in 1973 with new librettist and director. Bernstein himself created a concert version of his Candide. The music is 100% Bernstein: touching, satirical, rhythmically complex, with salutes to the international dance styles of Tango and waltz. It has jazz bones and tips its hat to moments of Rossini, Gounod (which I did not hear), and Gilbert and Sullivan. I am eager to hear the whole operetta.

Rhapsody in Blue. A few years ago, Rhapsody in Blue won as the number one most favorite music when SF’s classical music station ran its California play list competition. Oh, there was a lot of complaining: Why not Beethoven’s 5th? Why not Beethoven’s 9th? Why this beloved American music which is still exciting and fascinating? It is now celebrating its 100th anniversary. It is possible that Beethoven’s 5th and 9th supporters duked it out and that led them out of the top. It is also possible that the Rhapsody in Blue will thrill you and move you each time you hear it. In about 7th or 8th grade my friend Michelle and I would sit in my parents’ den and listen to that music. I realized on Oct. 26, that I probably had never heard it live. Definitely be there in person next time there is an opportunity. There is so much life in the music. I waited for that sliding clarinet glissando that gave me a chill down my back at the same time it gave me a feeling that the music was not describing sitting quietly. Gershwin said that while on a train the music came to him. “And there I suddenly heard — and even saw on paper — the complete construction of the Rhapsody, from beginning to end…. I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America – of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our blues, our metropolitan madness.” It is exactly all of that. There is not a moment when one loses interest. I was eager to know what was next, how the music went from one sensation to another. Michelle Cann just owned the Rhapsody. From the moment she appeared at the piano, took hold of her translucent, yellow, floor length cape, and flicked it over her shoulders to let it drape over the piano bench everyone in the full house had glued their eyes on Ms Cann. The dress was great, the playing was powerful and full of the Rhapsody music. The audience would not stop applauding and shouting. Ms Cann rewarded us with an encore: Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C-sharp minor – that’s how it started – and then she played it in Hazel Scott’s jazz improvisation on that piece. It was dazzling. Thank you, Georgiana Du, for telling me it was Hazel Scott’s improv.

William Grant Still, composer, (1895 – 1978)

William Grant Still did not take lessons to play a violin until he was 14 years old. He then taught himself the viola, ‘cello, double bass, clarinet, oboe, and saxophone. He attended Wilberforce University, and while there he directed the band. From there he attended the Oberlin Conservatory. He had received a scholarship, but he had to leave for military service in the Navy. After that, he was a sideman for W.C. Handy who took him onward to Memphis and New York. He never wasted time; somehow he also studied with Edgard Varese, the avant garde composer. Wood Notes is thrilling in its own way. It is tranquil but moving. The first movement , Singing River, lets the listener see and feel the river. Slightly, it meanders and the onlooker feels as though part of the river. The music focuses on strings and muted trumpets. Floating and still in motion, this first movement musically lets one know what a river is. The second movement, Autumn Night is a storm, but a gentle storm. There is enough wind to make the tree limbs sway back and forth, but not enough to bother anyone. It is like spending a night outside. There is a breeze and some rain to remind one that there is weather that can be a soothing story. Moon Dusk stars an oboe solo and more strings. The instruments are beautiful in their balance. Balance is an essence in the entire work. It ends with Whippoorwill’s Shoes. Syncopated rhythms and quick changes of the melodies make a surprising scene jump and dance. It is a bit of folk music, but not entirely. William Grant Still gives us a peaceful scene but that does not mean its music is immobile. It touches natural gifts. Still wrote more than 150 works, including 8 operas, and 5 symphonies. He was the first African American to write a symphony that was performed by a major orchestra and first to conduct a major orchestra. This was the first performance of Wood Notes by the SF Symphony. In program notes for Wood Notes’ premiere at the Chicago Symphony with Artur Rodzinski, Still declares his position: “Wood Notes has a social significance because it is a collaboration between a Southern white man and a Southern-born Negro composer, in which both of the participants were enthused over the project.” He dedicated Wood Notes to Friedrich J. Lehmann, his composition professor at Oberlin.

George Gershwin, composer, (1898 – 1937)

The opera, Porgy and Bess, Gershwin described as an “American folk opera.” It was based on a novel by DuBose Heyward. Heyward became the librettist. Ira Gershwin, the endlessly original lyricist for his brother’s songs, supplied some of the lyrics for this opera. George Gershwin moved to an island off of Charlestown, South Carolina, to write in order to keep the accent of the place. Gershwin and DuBose insisted that all the major roles would be filled by African American actors/singers. The opera opens with “Summertime,” considered to be the most recognizable tune in all of 20th century music theater. The story is about a tragic love between Porgy, a disabled, impoverished, and good hearted man; Bess, an abused woman who was addicted to cocaine; and Crown, a violent dockworker who drops her when he murders a man and decides to run. Bess begs Porgy to protect her, but when Crown returns to take Bess with him, Porgy kills Crown. Then, Bess goes to New York with Sporting Life, a dope dealer. Ever true to his love, Porgy follows them to New York. Five years after George Gershwin’s death, Robert Russell Bennett, a friend and colleague to Gershwin, arranged a medley of Porgy and Bess music for the Pittsburgh Symphony’s conductor, Fritz Reiner. As I listened to the “Symphonic Picture,” I felt the deep emotion and pain painted by the music. Even the satirical “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” sung by Sporting Life, has a heart full of blues. There are various commentaries about a white composer writing about a community of African Americans. I feel that Gershwin wanted to include not only the actors/singers but their community. The opera Carmen, focused on impoverished women and bullfighters, was written by a Frenchman. Curiously, Gershwin was thrown to the hungry lions on at least two sides. Writers of the ’20s and ’30s called him an ape from the jungles and denigrated his music; to them it was jazz, music from Africa. In addition to the antisemitism targeted at him, the bigots against African Americans added him to their list of hatreds. To them, he was just another low life African American. Gershwin died young, only 39. His music? It will not die.