Loving the Unexpected, And the Familiar 

by Michelle Dulak 
 
San Francisco Classical Voice, February 15, 2004

SANTA ROSA---Dare we hope that whoever succeeds Jeffrey Kahane at the Santa Rosa Symphony the year after next will do his job half so well as he does? I don't mean merely the conducting (though the conducting is definitely going to be missed), but the informative yet uncondescending remarks before pieces, the intricately-devised programming, the seeking-out of important soloists and important pieces, new and old, that deserve attention and haven't got it. The same orchestra that introduced Hilary Hahn and Nokuthula Ngwemyana to the Bay Area has just done the far-too-long-delayed Bay Area premiere of Esa-Pekka Salonen's quasi-concerto-for-orchestra, L.A. Variations; and played the hell out of it to boot. This is an orchestra that (in the moment, at least) doesn't think of itself as just another rest stop for the Freeway Philharmonic. Nor does its audience, for that matter. I do hope it stays like that.

Originally programmed was a piece of Michael Daugherty titled Sunset Strip. That would have been typically clever Kahane programming, leading from Finland via Salonen to L.A., but for undisclosed reasons the Daugherty was replaced by two more short pieces of Sibelius, and L.A. was left to Salonen to describe. I am glad; because Salonen's description (if you like) of Los Angeles was vast and beautiful and memorable, while I would expect Daugherty's take on the same city to be in the same broadly ironic, too-knowing vein as most of his recent music. Salonen, at least, doesn't confine himself to Sunset Strip; but then he doesn't confine himself to anything, any more than the city does.

A city in metaphor

In particular, he doesn't fall into the trap of trying to capture the nature of the city by mimicking its sounds literally. Wandering along through the L.A. Variations is like wandering through a huge and hugely variegated place like Los Angeles, not in sound but in mood. You turn a corner (metaphorically speaking), and there is something that affects the heart like a flock of bright birds, and happens to be represented by a bunch of high woodwind and a very lively solo violin; turn another corner and suddenly something else strikes you like sounding brass (supplied by Salonen in the form of, well, sounding brass); then something much greater knocks you half senseless with its sheer strength and rhythm, pulsing with all the discordant energy of a great, teeming mass of humanity at some concerted work; and then you stagger on again, into yet other strange and bewildering landscapes, and slip as easily out of them into other things equally strange. The mysterious ending, in which the strings evaporate upward majestically, to be met with the little chirp of a piccolo, is just the crowning touch.

My only real complaint is that it should be called L.A. Variations when it is so obviously London Variations. Or possibly New York Variations. I say this knowing London pretty well, New York less well, Los Angeles not at all. Maybe it's a tolerable portrait of any one of them, or of any great city.

There are very few pieces that capture the heady experience of running into a hundred new things in short succession that don't also capture (all too vividly and realistically) the experience of falling into chaos in the process. This one manages it.

Sibelius, cold, tepid, and hot

The surrounding Sibelius wasn't a thrill on quite that scale, but then it hardly could have been. The concert opened with Finlandia, in a taut rendition that was just a little too reluctant to pander to the audience for my taste. Then the slight, wan Valse triste, more melancholy than seriously "sad" here; then LemminkŠinen's Return, in which the Santa Rosa strings tackled the bustling string parts with a fearlessness that made me want to absolve the odd smudge in advance.

After intermission came the Violin Concerto, and another substitution ÷ this time of the intended soloist; the young Latvian violinist Baiba Skride, originally scheduled, was unable to obtain a visa and had to cancel. In her place, at two weeks' notice, was the young Korean-American violinist Chee-Yun, who certainly did not play like a hasty replacement.

Indeed, she sailed through most of the difficulties on Sunday as though she'd been gearing up for months. When an effect failed to come off, which was seldom, it seemed more often than not to have to do with coordination between herself and the orchestra ÷ as in the opening of the finale, where she sometimes seemed to be outstripping them, or in the deadly scale in thirds a little later on, where they seemed to be rushing her. But the main impression was of that lovely, clear, powerful tone soaring over an orchestral backdrop that was deliberately designed as a backdrop, that is, as the landscape behind the figure. There are violinists who have tried to play the solo part of the Sibelius Concerto with the same icy remoteness that is written into much of the accompaniment. Chee-Yun obviously isn't one of them; she played it exactly like a hot-blooded Romantic concerto, which (as anyone might see after two minutes' look at the solo part) is what it is anyway; and it was thrilling.

Her encore was the third movement of Bach's C-major Solo Sonata, played with a touching tenderness and simplicity.

(Michelle Dulak, editor of San Francisco Classical Voice, is a violinist and violist who has written about music for Strings, Stagebill, Early Music America, and the New York Times.)