Concertmaster Alexander Barantschik served as leader (the program did
not call him "conductor") and soloist with a reduced ensemble of
strings last night in Davies Symphony Hall in the first of this week's
set of San Francisco Symphony concerts. Before the intermission
Barantschik stood before the ensemble playing the primary solo violin
parts in the first four concertos (usually known as The Four Seasons) of
Antonio Vivaldi's Opus 8. After the intermission he led from the
concertmaster's chair for performances of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's K.
137 divertimento in B-flat major and Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Opus 48
serenade.
All twelve concertos of Vivaldi's Opus 8 are collected under the title Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'invenzione
(the test of harmony and invention). Thus, one may view each concerto
as an experiment in inventive technique that both honors and expands the
basic harmonic grammar of the early eighteenth century. For each of
the first four concertos, Vivaldi prepared a sonnet that describes very
explicitly and programmatically what his inventions are meant to depict
for each of the four seasons of the year. The old recording that Max
Goberman made with his New York Sinfonietta included readings of these
sonnets, establishing once and for all that Vivaldi was far better as a
composer than as a poet.
I wrote that Barantschik played the
"primary solo violin" in these concertos. As is the case with the
Brandenburg Concertos of Johann Sebastian Bach, these compositions
involve the interplay of multiple solo lines against the ensemble.
Barantschik played in most of these solo combinations, which included a
duet with cellist Peter Wyrick, a violin trio with Mark Volkert and Dan
Carlson, and even passages where violist Katie Kadarauch took over the
continuo line. However, while Bach explored instrumental diversity,
Vivaldi stuck with using the basic string sounds to invoke images of
shepherds, singing birds, and barking hunting dogs. Nevertheless, that
underlying harmonic grammar provides a relatively consistent foundation,
making half an evening of these four concertos a bit more of a stretch
than a full evening of the six Brandenburgs.
It was a bit
surprising to read that Mozart's K. 137 divertimento was receiving its
first San Francisco Symphony performance last night. This is the middle
composition of a set of three works composed in Salzburg in 1772, all
of which have pretty much achieved "standard repertoire" status in the
Mozart canon. As James Keller's program notes observed, when he
composed this set Mozart was "fifteen going on sixteen" and "exactly a
decade along in his composing career." Of the three this is the only
one that begins with an Andante, giving it a slightly more introspective
attitude than its companions, although the following two Allegro
movements restore the high spirits one associates with his divertimento
style. Barantschik nicely captured the contrast of moods in his
approach to shaping the performance.
118 years later, in 1880,
Tchaikovsky composed his serenade for the same kind of string ensemble.
Barantschik decided wisely to add several performers to each section.
This nicely served the opening bravura gesture, which returns in the
fourth movement just before the final coda. If Tchaikovsky is not as
inventive as Vivaldi or Mozart (as my orchestration professor put it,
"Tchaikovsky cannot say anything without repeating himself"), this
serenade offers an elaborate vocabulary of rhythms that carry the
listener through a relatively unembellished sonata movement, a waltz, a
soulful elegy, and a pastiche of Russian folk tunes. One can appreciate
why George Balanchine selected this music for his first choreographic
effort in the United States, since the spirit of dance lives and thrives
in every note. Barantschik caught that spirit, channeling it to lead
the entire ensemble gracefully, allowing the energy of the final
movement to bring this refreshing evening to a stimulating conclusion.
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