Conventionally, an oratorio is structured around a Biblical narrative
that provides frequent opportunities for reflection. The narrative
tends to be delivered through recitative passages, which introduce the
reflections in more extended works for solo voices and chorus. In
preparing a libretto for William Walton's "Belshazzar's Feast," Osbert
Sitwell turned this formula on its head, providing extended reflective
texts for the beginning and ending that serve as bookends for a middle
narrative portion. The narrative is the episode from the Book of Daniel
concerning the "great feast" of the Babylonian King Belshazzar, which
is interrupted by a disembodied hand that writes the words, "Mene, Mene,
Tekel Upharsin," forecasting the fall of the Babylonian Kingdom.
Sitwell's account is highly abbreviated, saying nothing about the Hebrew
Daniel being the only person who can decipher the words and keeping all
mention of the Hebrews in Babylonian Captivity to the opening
reflective text (using the concluding reflection as a song of
liberation).
From a musical point of view, the delivery of the
narrative is anything but unadorned recitative. It is shared by mixed
choir and baritone solo, along with orchestral resources whose abundance
almost matches the extravagance of Belshazzar's "great feast." Walton
had a keen ear for orchestration, complemented by that sense of whimsy
that even the most serious of British composers never succeed in
concealing. In this case the whimsy emerges as the feast is in full
swing and all the different gods of Babylonian polytheism are being
celebrated. These are the gods of gold, silver, iron, wood, stone, and
brass, each of which is given a particularly characteristic orchestral
treatment, not all of which dwell on aspects of shock and awe. (Had the
Babylonians had a God of the Kitchen Sink, I suspect that Walton would
have found the appropriate orchestral treatment!)
Whimsy aside,
John Relyea brought the perfectly resonant deep voice that the
seriousness of the narrative demanded, while Vladimir Ashkenazy led the
San Francisco Symphony and Chorus with a keen sense of proper pace for
both the narrative and the reflections. Once we progress beyond the
opening lamentations, the whole affair as about as joyful a noise as one
can find in a concert hall. Ashkenazy was never shy about letting the
noise get noisy; but he could keep all of his resources under control
to make sure that the joy was joyous, rather than chaotic.
By
ending his evening at Davies Symphony Hall with Walton's joyful noise,
Ashkenazy complemented the beginning of his program, which was the world
premiere of "Music in Dark Times," which he had commissioned from the
American composer Steven Gerber. The work is in six movements and was
composed between 2005 and 2008, meaning that it is hard not to associate
the concept of "dark times" with all the stories saturating the news
media over that period. However, Thomas May's notes for the program
book quoted Gerber as saying that the composition was not "a political
or ideological piece. It just seemed to suit the character of the
movements." The opening and closing movements are fanfares, while the
inner movements consist of a pavane (in homage to both Gabriel Fauré and
Maurice Ravel, rather than early music), a tarantella entitled "Dance
of Death," a dead march, and an elegy.
Each of these movements was relatively brief, leading Joshua Kosman to suggest, in his San Francisco Chronicle review,
that each one concluded just as it was about to begin (my words, not
Kosman's). I do not disagree; but I may have an explanation, which
would only make sense if Gerber had been hiding some of his biography
from us. May cited his educational influences as being Robert Parris,
Milton Babbitt, and Earl Kim, along with the indirect influences of the
music of Béla Bartók and Elliott Carter. However, the "architecture of
brevity" that characterizes Gerber's six movements comes straight out of
the blind poet and street musician Moondog (Louis Thomas Hardin), whose
basic rhetoric also consisted of establishing a mood, enriching it by
adding instrumental resources, and then letting it lapse back into the
silence from which it originated. Columbia Records promoted him in the
anything-goes years of the Sixties; but I still remember him at his
post on Sixth Avenue just doing his own thing. It would surprise me if
Gerber had never encountered Moondog, but it would not surprise
me if Moondog's influence on him was not a conscious one. Whatever the
real history may be, exposure to Moondog greatly enhanced my own
listening experience of "Music in Dark Times."
Between Gerber's
"dark times" and Walton's Babylonian "darkness," Ashkenazy conducted the
young Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin in a performance of Ludwig van
Beethoven's fourth piano concerto in G major (Opus 68). In the past I
have seen Ashkenazy only as a pianist, and I think his experience as a
pianist effectively informed his role as a conductor of this work. He
had a particularly sensitive ear for the balance between the piano and
the orchestral resources. This turned out to be important because
Sudbin tended to get pedal-heavy, often when the fingering got more
complicated. Ashkenazy was able to engage his "balancing act"
techniques to maintain the overall message, so to speak, of the
concerto. He also seems to have made the decision to have some of the
more intricate piano solos supported by a solo cello bass line, rather
than giving that voice to the entire section. Michael Grebanier's
strong and rich sound was clearly up to this task, which every now and
then seemed to reflect back on the sonorities of Beethoven's earlier
Opus 56 "Triple Concerto." If this sounds like all available resources
being engaged to prop up a weak piano performance, it was far preferable
to the communications breakdown that had taken place at the recent London Symphony performance of Beethoven's final piano concerto.
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