June 8, 2009: Illustrious predecessors

Stephen Paulson, Music Director of Symphony Parnassus, has been deeply involved with the current Schubert/Berg festival in his capacity as Principal Bassoon for the San Francisco Symphony, particularly this past Friday and Saturday in his contribution to the performance of Alban Berg's 1925 "Chamber Concerto," for piano, violin, and thirteen wind instruments.  Since he probably knew about plans for this festival for more than a year, I have to wonder whether he deliberately arranged yesterday afternoon's concluding concert of the current Parnassus season (performed in the Concert Hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music) to feature a major influence on each of the composers being fêted at Davies Symphony Hall.  Yesterday's program consisted of only two compositions, the fourth piano concerto of Ludwig van Beethoven, Opus 58 in G major, and the fifth symphony of Gustav Mahler.  Over at Davies Michael Tilson Thomas has made several references to Mahler's influence on Berg, while the impact of Beethoven on Franz Schubert is evident in just about every note Schubert composed.  In both cases the departure from that influence is more important than the influence itself;  but the Parnassus program provided a stimulating perspective on the "roots" of the programs that Thomas has been arranging.

The soloist for the Beethoven was Ian Scarfe, a postgraduate Conservatory student in the chamber music program.  His work in chamber music has been, to say the least, prodigious.  Spontaneous recollection immediately brings to mind a performance this past December of Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, which was as perceptive of Messiaen's approach to his faith as it was dynamic.  Scarfe's interpretation of Beethoven also scored high marks for both perception and energy.  He took an acoustically dry approach to the outer movements, which emphasized the intricacies of melodic line where other pianists might be inclined to simplify through excess damper pedal work.  This dry quality was reinforced by Paulson, making for one of the crispest endings I have ever heard for the first movement.  On the other hand Scarfe was generous with raised dampers during the brief middle movement, giving a shimmering quality to the chorale-like passages with which the piano responds to the recitative-like orchestral unisons.  This is a work that deserves (and tends to receive) frequent performances;  but the performances that matter the most are the ones through which we discover new ways of hearing what we thought was familiar.  This collaborative approach to Beethoven by Scarfe and Paulson was such a performance.

To the extent that Parnassus is a "community" (rather than professional) ensemble, the Mahler fifth would seem like a rather ambitious undertaking.  However, as Paulson observed in his notes in the program book:

This is our second outing with Mahler's Fifth, the first having been about six years ago.  Those of us here today who participated in that performance are most eager to revisit this great work.

While that eagerness may not have been up to the full extent of demands set by this major effort of composition, one could tell that Paulson had the "ear" for Mahler's uniquely rhetorical approach.  The fact that the orchestra, as a whole, was able to acquire that same "ear" provided compensation for the occasional missed cue.  The flesh may not have been up to every challenge that Mahler set, but the spirits were there in full force.  The result was far more stimulating than more routine approaches that never seem to get beyond jumping through all of the requisite technical hoops.

I wish to observe in a final remark that, once again, I was reminded of the importance of differentiation when one is faced with so many opportunities to attend music performances.  Parnassus has sought differentiation through both choice of repertoire and, in the case of the Beethoven, innovative approaches to that repertoire.  The organization also took an approach that paralleled one I documented in the first review I wrote for Examiner.com, the use of original art on the cover of the program book (reproduced with permission of the artist by way of Symphony Parnassus):

This painting, by Chester Hazlewood, was inspired by the opening funeral march of the Mahler symphony.  It provided the "first impression" of the afternoon's program and thus offered one more way in which Mahler's spirit was honored.