Review: San Diego Symphony sparkles with conductor Edo de Waart
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The San Diego Symphony concert on Saturday was billed as “Edo de Waart & the Russian Romantics” and it sure did it.
The first guest conductor de Waart led the orchestra through elaborate performances of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 23 and Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances op.45.
The most interesting work on the bill, however, was a 20-minute piece by contemporary British composer Anna Clyne. One would not have noticed from the advertising that her composition “Abstractions” was on the program.
It is the same with American orchestral advertising. Emphasize the standard repetition and soloists. Hide the last compositions so that ticket buyers are not put off.
Works by living composers should be features and not bugs, especially if they are as extensive as “Abstractions”. This was not a five-minute concert start, but a five-movement suite, each inspired by a painting or a photograph.
Listeners who like more harmonic variety or melodic development may dismiss “Abstractions” as too simple, but these surfaces are more complex than one might assume after a single listen.
Take the first sentence, inspired by Sara VanDerBeek’s “Marble Moon”. An E major chord goes through various instrument configurations. A slow five-part melody heard in other movements is repeated, each time with different instrumental combinations. But listen to it again. This five-note melody descends, is stretched. Tones are held that blur the E major timbres.
This tonal fuzziness occurs in all five movements. Textures are never clean; there is always a note that doesn’t quite fit into the harmonies.
The pitches are held as the music goes on, hanging around and tarnishing the harmony. It is reminiscent of the video effect where a moving object leaves frozen frames, creating a streak behind the original object.
The last movement, inspired by Brice Mardens “3”, is the boldest of them all. Strings arpeggiate an ascending minor chord followed by a descending dominant seventh. Back and forth, back and forth, the same two chords for the entire set. The repetitions are never quite the same, however, and the wind and brass sections sound contradicting chords that crescendo and fall back from nowhere. There is always some kind of contrast against the harmony of the strings.
The rest of the concert was very Russian and very romantic. Simon Trpčeski was the brave piano soloist in Tchaikovsky’s concert. He did his part super well. After the first sentence, the audience applauded loudly, accompanied by a loud honking of a passing boat. Brass and brass solos were consistently excellent.
Is something that claims to be a dance as undancellable as Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances? This bloated composition has its admirers, who would have been delighted with the subtle details and monstrous crescendos that de Waart and the musicians produced.
In the end it was the mysteries of Clyne’s “Abstractions” that got me excited.
A Tchaikovsky piano concerto or a Rachmaninov work is part of everyday life for the symphony. The living composers should be more on the schedule.
There seems to be more music by contemporary composers on the symphony’s repertoire this season than in previous years. I wish the symphony outreach celebrated these opportunities rather than covering them up.
Most of the composers on the San Diego Symphony programs are dead and buried. This is no reason to bury the living.
Hertzog is a freelance writer.
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