ArtsSF

In a Vietnamese Outpouring OAKLAND—Despite very meager attendance on the eve of Valentine’s, the Vietnamese new year, and President’s Day, an alluring Viet lady named Vo saved the day and night for the perennially hard-struggling Oakland Symphony. A helter-skelter concert program and an army of fervent volunteers trolling the aisles for donations didn’t deter from a rousing finale of Vietnamese music that enkindled the faithful scattered around the huge Paramount Theatre Feb. 12. By the time the encore rolled around,…

Read More Read More

BERKELEY—There’s been no composer quite like the French mystic Olivier Messiaen. He wrote long pieces on bird calls, on visions of Heaven, on memorable environments. He was a true believer in many areas, even in the whole-tone scale exploited by his countryman Debussy. Like Scriabin, Messiaen had synesthesia—the rare quality of seeing colors on hearing music, and vice versa. After hearing his immense, 92-minute tone poem “From the Canyon to the Stars,” I concluded that having the synesthesia gene would…

Read More Read More

BERKELEY—Mahler’s massive Symphony No. 5, heard here with the inspiring St. Louis Symphony the other day, is an extraordinary work, written during the creative euphoria of the Austrian composer’s recent marriage and honeymoon. Its long 68-minute musical path reminds me of a journey starting in a depressing, grimy industrial district (say, in Linz), and heading toward the dreamland of sunny Lake Worth, meandering through picturesque old towns (Hallstatt), bath resorts (Bad Ischl), and thriving vineyards, in anything but a crow-flies…

Read More Read More