October 2   Mozart Requiem in San Pedro

PROGRAM: W.A. Mozart- Requiem, KV.626
                      Dr. Sheridan J. Ball, conductor
                      Golden State Pops Orchestra
                      Southern California Master Chorale
                      Warner Grand Theater, San Pedro, California
 

Dr. Sheridan J. Ball conducted the Golden State Pops Orchestra and the Southern California Master Chorale in a gripping, powerful reading of Mozart’s unfinished masterpiece.  Despite the uneven quality of the musicians and singers involved (the botched opening of Benedictus had to be restarted), Dr. Ball was able to coax some fine things out of them.  The Chorale singing achieved a nice balance between male and female voices, sounding intensely dramatic in the fugal Kyrie, fearsome in Confutatis, and appropriately poignant in Lacrimosa.  The final Communion was powerfully exhilarating.  Dr. Ball’s overall view of the Requiem was not that of fear, but of comfort and hope.  It was interesting to note that the timpani played with less force in the Dies irae (wrath of the Judgment Day) than in the Communion (the affirmation of God’s compassionate nature). 

The solo numbers were all taken by various singers from the Chorale with variable results.  They were not helped by the dry acoustics of the Warner Grand, either.  Nonetheless, there were a few standouts – bass Harold Clousing in Tuba Mirum, tenor James Callon in Recordare and the silver-voiced soprano Grace Lee in Benedictus and Agnus Dei.  

Kudos for Dr. Ball and the City of San Pedro for bringing art and beauty, against all odds, to a much-maligned community.   For a list of upcoming attractions at the Warner Grand, visit www.grandvision.org

- Reviewed by Truman C. Wang
 

Related link: Golden State Pops Orchestra
 

The orchestra’s newfound brilliance was due in part to new hires in the brass and percussion sections, who proudly made their presence known in no uncertain terms.

The opening night program featured the Firebird Suite (1919), fifteen minutes of selected dances and ‘Best of’ from the Symphonic ballet.  Last night, the original 1910 Ballets Russes version of the Firebird, all forty-five minutes of it, was heard in all its symphonic (and stereophonic) splendor thanks to Salonen’s thrilling and gutsy interpretation, based on a keen awareness of the revolutionary nature of this 20^th-Century masterpiece.  In the brooding chromatic opening measures, the strings played softly and ominously (the ghost of Dukas’ sorcerer was clearly audible).  In “Sunrise”, the off-stage brasses cut through the auditorium like a bright beam of sun ray.  The “Infernal Dance” and “Capture of Ivan Tsarevitch” erupted in a savage orgiastic frenzy of clashing brasses and percussions, foreshadowing Stravinsky’s next two ballets Petrouchka (1911) and Rite of Spring (1913). The purely lyrical numbers – Princesses’ Round Dance, Lullaby, Firebird’s entreaties – featured some ravishing solo turns by Ariana Ghez’s oboe (round dance) and William Lane’s French horn (finale).

The official program notes of the Los Angeles Philharmonic contain two glaring factual errors, long dismissed by historians.  The first – Stravinsky started to write Fireworks in 1908 as a wedding present but did not complete it until a year after the wedding in 1910.  In any case, it was Scherzo fantastique, not Fireworks (though both premiered in the same concert in 1910), that had put Stravinsky in line to receive the Firebird commission from Ballets Russes Director Serge Diaghilev.  Secondly, the oft-repeated tale of Liadov being the original intended composer for Firebird and Stravinsky as the second-in-line is also incorrect.  It was actually Nikolai Tcherepnin, Diaghilev’s staff conductor, after whose withdrawal the commission was passed down to Liadov, Glazunov, Sokolov and eventually to the young Stravinsky.   

October has proved to be a good month for pianists in L.A.: Lang Lang, András Schiff,  Piotr Anderszewski,  Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Yefim Bronfman – a veritable hit parade of talents bringing their own distinctive styles to the classic masterworks.  Bronfman’s broadly romantic style was perfect for Tchaikovsky’s B-flat Minor Piano Concerto No. 1.  He had no problem carving out the broad melody in the opening fanfare (never to be heard again after its first appearance) or the long-arcing span of the Andantino folksong.  Most impressive was his avoidance of emotional overindulgence and over-pedaling, playing the Allegro climaxes and folk dance with great force and clarity without turning the notes into a haze of sounds.  It was a classy performance matched by Salonen’s fiery but controlled conducting.  The L.A. Phil strings had seldom sounded better than in the Andantino accompaniment, lightly-bowed and radiantly beautiful.
 

- Reviewed by Truman C. Wang




 

After the new organ’s vigorous marathon workout by French virtuoso organist Olivier Latry last Sunday afternoon, one could safely say that the organ fits the hall like a glove, as it were.  It is not only an beautiful instrument to behold, but sounds great as well.  

Nevermind the music was mostly obscure Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century organ works by such names as Widor, Dupre, Tournemire, Messiaen and Escaich.  The collective effect of brilliant sounds and spectacular playing achieves a spiritual intensity that is the purpose of these works.  The diverse organ effects started with Bach’s lushly romantic G-Major Prelude and fugue, BWV 541, and continued with Franck’s large-scale B-minor Chorale No. 2 that explores the extremes in the organ’s registers and dynamics, and concluded with a dazzling improvisation of “America” from West Side Story, played in the fugal style of J.S. Bach – a fine tribute to the host country as well as to Latry’s own prodigious skills.

Other works on the program played with the organ’s specialized sound effects, these including spatial separation of echoes in Widor’s Andante sostenuto (which miraculously floated on angel’s wings), gradual buildup of echoes in Tournemire’s Choral Variations, and gradual fading of echoes in Messiaen’s Resurrection of Jesus.  Escaich’s Evocation No. 2 features a stabbing ostinato bass that Latry played with both his feet, and upper melodies playable only by adroit contortion of his upper torso and limbs.  Olivier Latry may be an organist of great depth at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris; he is vastly entertaining as well. 

If there was one aspect of the concert that did not quite hit the sweet spot, it was the somewhat bass-shy acoustics of the Hall, which rendered the rumbling tremolo in the Messiaen less than Earth-shaking.  But I am sure that can be resolved by tweaking those acoustic panels.

All in all, a memorable Sunday afternoon of organ spectacular at the Segerstrom Concert Hall.
 

- Reviewed by Truman C. Wang

Maestro Grant Gershon took the stage, and with minimal greetings whistled a single note, gave the downbeat, and oh, the glorious a cappella chord that burst from 96 throats in perfect harmony was truly awesome, initiating the first of 11 movements chosen from the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Opus 31, written in 1910 by Sergei Rachmaninoff to begin the ensemble’s 45^th Season. Trained in proper Orthodox Church Russian by Chorale member Alexander Ruggieri, the Chorale fed every emotion, from contemplative to ecstatic, from reflective to anguished and on to exultative, providing the listener with as near-religious an experience as a believer would have in church. Soprano Sun Joo Yeo contributed in the movement translated “We Hymn Thee”.

After intermission, the Master Chorale was joined by the excellent Chorale Orchestra organized by Steve Scharf for Joseph Haydn’s ultimate major work, the Harmoniemesse, a work of significant length and content the title of which, Maestro Gershon explained to the early arrivals, refers not to “harmony” in the English-language sense, but to the German expression for “wind section” i.e., oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, and one flute, that play a significant role in the course of the composition, particularly in the Agnus Dei. Tempi were well within the generically acceptable, except for the Benedictus, which Maestro Gershon took at a speed to rival anyone, anywhere, the effect of which tended to trivialize the text (Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord).

The solo quartet of Deborah Mayhan, soprano, Adrianna Manfredi, alto (who sometimes found the tessitura a bit too low for comfort), Daniel Chaney, tenor and Gregory Geiger, bass, who was substituting for the indisposed Reid Bruton, all drawn from the ranks of the Master Chorale, were extraordinarily well chosen for the task, and sang like a true quartet instead of the usual four soloists all taking their turns.  But when their brief solo turns came, they were more than equal to the challenge, most notably Ms. Mayhan, whose soprano soared into the Haydnesque heights without edge or struggle. Tenor Kevin St. Clair and alto Tracy Van Fleet joined the quartet to form a thrilling sextet in the finale, a brilliant compositional coupe that served the purpose brilliantly.

This inaugural concert, filled as it was with so much music of comfortable and familiar harmonies, will be followed next month by a concert of the mirror opposite. All aboard!
 

- Reviewed by Douglas Neslund



 

Making their debuts were Baroque violinist Ilia Korol and viola da gamba player Vittorio  Ghielmi, who performed with expected virtuosity but also a surprising shade of dark poignancy in Graun’s C-minor Double Concerto for Violin and Gamba.  It was as if the raspy chatter of the Baroque violin was being tempered by a melancholy gamba.  Ghielmi and Korol played with and off of each other in one unbroken harmonious fabric of the music.

In the tradition of the Baroque concerto, the soloists played along with the orchestra during the concerted tutti passages  (Baroque operas and Handel’s oratorios, too, have the soloists join the coro.) 

Verbruggen shone and sparkled on her squeaky-high sopranino recorder (almost like the modern piccolo in timber) in Vivaldi’s C-major Concerto for Recorder and Strings.  Of the 500-plus concertos that Vivaldi wrote, about 20 are for the recorder.  The C-major concerto is a prime example, showing a fine contrast of textures and sonorities between the recorder and the string orchestra.   She later shared the spotlight with Ghielmi in Telemann’s A-minor Double Concerto for Gamba and [Alto] Recorder.  The slightly melancholy timber of her alto recorder blended nicely with the viola da gamba. 

On the program were two Bach’s – J.S. and his distant older cousin J.B. (Johann Bernhard).  Artistically, J.B.’s Orchestra Suite No. 4 in D-major may be a distant contender for a Baroque masterpiece, but it was a cheerful, delightful antipasto to open the concert.  In J.S.’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G-major, Verbruggen was joined by Rotem Gilbert on the alto recorder in a spirited performance.   This is a concerto where the use of modern flutes would have inevitably destroyed the delicate sonorities of the orchestration, particularly in the echo effects of the slow movement.  The players of Musica Angelica all operated on high octane under the superb leadership of maestro Martin Haselboeck, and provided unfailing support for the team of soloists. 

 
- Reviewed by Truman C. Wang