ArtsSF

Tastes change; once vying with Hanson’s “Romantic” as the most popular American symphony of all, Aaron Copland’s Third showed  off its longterm merit and great appeal in the S.F. Symphony’s recording performance this week at Davies Hall. The Copland is neoclassicism at its best, with recurrent themes, a wide range of sonic colors, and contrasts of deft soft spots with stirring power that was arguably reflecting America, its growth and its optimism. I also detect the hustle and bustle of…

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BERKELEY, CA—-The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra has been a thriving outfit for some 59 years despite two burdens that most orchestras work hard to avoid, fearing unpalatable ticket sales: Lack of a conductor/music director, and the title  word “chamber” in place of “symphony.” Further playing down any star power, the group dons black no-necktie outfits, and it has two violinists alternating in the concertmaster’s seat. The saving grace comes on two fronts: an excellent ensemble, containing close to one-half women,…

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BERKELEY, CA—The music director’s pregnancy again brings guests to the local symphony podium—a declaration that you probably never once heard back in the 20th century. But we’re in another era. And Berkeley Symphony’s Joana Carneiro, who last year had triplets, is expecting again and forced to cancel, all of it making her among the most prolific conductors in all music history. This is a double positive, both for her and others, giving up-and-coming conductors too often mired in the “assistant”…

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Going a big step beyond, the visiting St. Louis Symphony gives its concert, then spends a day interacting with music students to foster the inspiration for the future. This rare interaction made for a double-barreled impact at the University of California here, some 70 miles east of San Francisco. As if it were needed, the orchestra and its leader David Robertson showed their  mettle in unfamiliar 20th-century repertory created by precocious composers not even 30 years old. There’s a certain…

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A brave guest conductor indeed, the visitor who introduces Bartok with a 12-minute illustrated lecture. But the English conductor Graeme Jenkins got away with it and had the Santa Rosa Symphony crowd firmly in his corner for a modern masterpiece, Bartok’s “Concerto for Orchestra” (1943). Along the way, putting away his baton, he had led articulate readings of Haydn and Mozart. The evening as a whole was rousing—far more an experience than a concert. Clearly the night’s focus Jan. 13…

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It was the Manny-and-Michael Show, on a high musical plane, tackling a sharply contrasting set of works at the San Francisco Symphony. You love picaresque puckishness? Richard Strauss’ “Til Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks,” and you’re welcome. You yearn to discover the unknown crannies of Mozart? You had his Piano Concerto No. 14, written in his 20s. How about a generous dose of operatic drama? The “Leonore Overture No. 3” of Beethoven, arguably the most skillful quarter-hour condensation of an opera ever….

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The Berkeley Symphony was focusing on women’s music, as both living composers and the guest conductor were from the distaff side. Little wonder: The two dead male composers, a cheery lot,  were immersed on themes of death looking back on two of the grand showmen of early music, Paganini and Liszt. Not to be outdone, piano soloist Conrad Tao put on a show of his own in two works Dec. 7, as if intent on bringing back pianist-composer Liszt from…

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The latest 12-year-old Wunderkind and international sensation turned out to be a bubbly composer and a very mature violinist, setting off San Jose’s two-week-long siege of Alma-mania being watched all over the country. The slender-as-a-sylph English girl Alma Deutscher, five feet tall if that, has the stage presence of a Hollywood veteran. She smiles and sways throughout her performance as though standing before her bedroom mirror, totally uninhibited. She clearly loved every minute of music-making before a sell-out crowd, involving…

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The epic Fourth Symphony of Charles Ives is an overwhelming anthology of Americana in a hodge-podge mix with European roots as seen from the distant future. You like dissonances? Charles Ives loved them. The work is unique, bigger than life, with impinging musics, like collisions of galaxies. It’s an element that this musical visionary loved, dating back to his hearing two marching bands intersecting with rival selections on a city street. Always pushing the envelope. Moment to moment in this…

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The renowned conductor Valery Gergiev returned to the Bay Area, a generation after his leadership  role in the San Francisco Opera’s brief heyday of Russian opera. This time, he was touring with the elite Mariinsky Orchestra of St. Petersburg. If you want him in opera, these days you have to fly to the Met in New York or beyond. The Mariinsky (formerly Kirov) Orchestra poured out its Russian soul Nov. 4 with an intriguing lesser-gems program of early 20th century composers…

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