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Author: Paul Hertelendy

LOSE YOURSELF IN JULIET LOVE

LOSE YOURSELF IN JULIET LOVE

Oversize Renaissance palaces, over some dozen danced scenes, played out on dual tiers. An oversize pit orchestra for the eloquent Prokofieff music, the most majestic ballet score of the 20th century, stamping this as the preeminent evening-length achievement of the post-Tchaikovsky era. And a massive cast set opulently in Shakespeare’s Verona. Can anything top this ballet for sheer performance power resonating with romanticism? And the feel of a lavish city state of half a millennium ago, with enough period costumes…

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ELOQUENCE IN AFTERMATH

ELOQUENCE IN AFTERMATH

         In this age of distress, disease and discord, how welcome to encounter a composer both mellow and inventive. He was an innovator and modernist, not in harmonies, but rather in building strangely compatible  pairings of live and canned sounds. The posthumous tribute by SF Performances provided an all-Ingram Marshall concert combining live musicians with electronic input (or, as he’d have called it, with tape). The career of Marshall (1942-2022) the sometime mystic has spilled over both coasts with commitments…

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The Fully Automatic Orchestra Premiered

The Fully Automatic Orchestra Premiered

The self-driving orchestra, with vacant podium, has arrived at center stage. Credit local composer Brian Baumbusch, 35, along with a Covid quarantine, electronics and a touch of Indonesia. Yes, finally, one tiny benefit we gained from that scourge of a Covid virus, leading to some invention and dispersion of musical ideas. Marooned in a Djakarta quarantine last year, Baumbusch composed his “Polytempo Music” which was premiered here April 13 by the elite S.F. Contemporary Music Players. His inspiration relegated conductor…

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ECSTASY AND DESPAIR, SYMPHONICALLY

ECSTASY AND DESPAIR, SYMPHONICALLY

How can so much exuberance emanate from one of the most depressing large-scale symphonies ever written? Easy. You put a beloved ex-maestro like Michael Tilson Thomas back on the podium. Upon entry, the revered 78-year-old conductor got a standing ovation from the near-sell-out crowd. And at the end, the fired-up patrons accorded the S.F. Symphony and him an inordinately rare six-minute ovation. Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) himself would never have believed it for the deeply aggrieved Sixth Symphony of 1904, which…

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A RARE FLOWERING IN WINE COUNTRY

A RARE FLOWERING IN WINE COUNTRY

ROHNERT PARK, CA—It’s a parttime orchestra, from a smaller city (Santa Rosa), having a conductor splitting his services with an out-of-state ensemble. So why the Santa Rosa Symphony, where you find yourself returning again and again, despite (in this case) a 90-minute drive to get there? Yes, the forward-looking SRS boasts varied programs regularly, including living composers along with the older masters. Its hall has not only fine acoustics but superb scenery—it’s among the loveliest concert halls of all if…

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WHEN IS MUSIC NOT MUSIC?

WHEN IS MUSIC NOT MUSIC?

OAKLAND, CA—-My professor taught a music course for non-majors and posed this very question, playing 3 or 4 recordings from concerts, each one fuzzier and less score-specific than the previous. I finally said no way to the last one, and now realize, years later, I was wrong, wrong, wrong. The 2022 winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Music, Raven Chacon, was inside the historic Mills College Concert Hall last week playing his own work entailing in part what he calls…

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UNIFIED DANCER DAZZLE

UNIFIED DANCER DAZZLE

Even in an evening of routine modern-ballet repertory works from recent seasons, you’re thunderstruck at the incredible proficiency of the S.F. Ballet dancers. In a piece like “Blake Works,” I found myself thoroughly irritated, mostly by the pop music lacking beats or focus. And yet the 20 or so dancers were so skilled and well-rehearsed, you thought they’d gone through training of a West Point drill team on the parade ground, then sped it up by four (an experience back…

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SHOOTING DOWN A RUSSIAN STAR

SHOOTING DOWN A RUSSIAN STAR

Composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who in his last 22 years was widely recognized as the cream of the crop among the Soviet Union’s composers, arguably turned out most of his significant, insightful music after the 1953 death of his nemesis, dictator Josef Stalin. Stalin had turned music criticism into a personal tool of repression which threatened either gulag confinement or execution to dissidents of any stripe. Dmitri’s later compositions of greatest note contained his repeated musical signature, D-S-C-H, which indicated via…

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WHAT OPUS WAS SHE PLAYING, ANYWAY?

WHAT OPUS WAS SHE PLAYING, ANYWAY?

When appearing at the piano, can anyone surpass the dazzling attire of the stellar Yuja Wang? Though a superstar in the classics, she and her attire comprised all the queries I got from men and women before the March 1 concert: What was her outfit this time around? Even an usher at Davies ventured to the subject with intrigue, “Well, we’ll soon see what she’s wearing, won’t we?” She dazzled, showing up in a gold-sequined bareback formal somewhere between haute…

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ADAMS’ METAMORPHOSIS

ADAMS’ METAMORPHOSIS

The timely world-premiere composition by Samuel Adams, which made an agreeable debut with the S.F. Symphony, calls for a detailed essay about the creative process, yet to be written. Because in trying to depict a sunset of our lingering pandemic, Adams revised and reworked his half-hour long opus “No Such Spring” numerous times, adding even a pianist in a prominent new concerto-like post down stage, as current events unfolded. His portrayal of the metamorphosis might be even more interesting to…

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