Composer Michael Djupstrom

TWO OLD, TWO NEW AT THE SR SYMPHONY'S MARCH CONCERT IN WEILL

Santa Rosa Symphony's March 23 concert combined well-known favorites with two new pieces. There are those who look down upon such “warhorses” as Tchaikovsky's violin concerto or Ravel's Bolero, but it must be borne in mind that such crowd pleasers do, indeed, bring the crowds to concerts to be pleased.

More than 1,000 filled Weill Hall, which in the present era is what's necessary in three weekend sets to sustain a professional orchestra, a point underscored when music director Francesco Lecce-Chong began the concert’s second half by reminding subscription holders that their participation in this and future seasons makes possible long-term planning, commissioning new works and participation by top artists such as the evening’s violin soloist, Geneva Lewis.

Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir's versatility extends from performance in progressive rock bands to Oscar-winning film scores and even video games, and her short piece Folk faer andlit (“People get faces”) opened the concert. It commemorates a shameful 2015 episode when the Icelandic government denied residency to Albanian immigrants and deported them, including children with terminal illnesses. Originally scored for chorus, its text includes the Icelandic words for “mercy” and “forgive us for...”

The string orchestra version performed by the SRS was no less wrenching. It began with a melody performed by a string trio placed upstage right, well behind the rest of the orchestra, and this melody was repeated, as in a passacaglia, while the rest of the strings developed motifs on an A minor scale. Having heard a recording of the choral version, I can only hope that we get the chance to hear it live in the future. In the meantime, the string orchestra version may someday attain the status of works like Barber's Adagio for strings.

Tchaikovsky's D Major violin concerto, written in 1878, is one of the big five of the 19th century fiddle concertos (the others are the Mendelssohn, Bruch, Brahms, and Beethoven). This was a period of significant transition in concerto writing. The earlier violin and piano concertos by, for example Mozart, were scored for what would today be considered a chamber orchestra. By mid-century orchestras had grown to the 80 musicians with which we're familiar, and the piano of Mozart and Beethoven's day had grown to concert grand that could hold its own against them. The violin, weighing barely a pound (and in those days with gut strings) was unchanged since the Baroque era, and so could easily be overwhelmed unless the difference in sound was carefully considered by the composer.

This notwithstanding, Tchaikovsky wrote his concerto in only three weeks, and saved his typically exuberant orchestral flourishes for moments in which the soloist had rests, while passages in which the orchestra accompanies the violin are much less densely scored. The solo part, splendidly performed by Ms. Lewis, makes effective use of features as double stops and the instrument's sonorous lower range. Her instrumental sound was well suited to Weill Hall's famously excellent acoustics, and even from my seat in the balcony every note from the fortes on the G string to the highest harmonics in the first movement cadenza stood out clearly. Throughout the piece Mr. Lecce-Chong conducted, and the orchestra played, with commendable restraint while preserving the lush sound so beloved by Tchaikovsky enthusiasts. If the horns may have sounded a bit prominent in some passages, this could have been a combination of my balcony seat in the hall and the horn’s placement on top of the third riser in the orchestra. Ms. Lewis's performance was technically flawless and nuanced yet passionate, particularly in the cadenza, and resulted in a spontaneous standing ovation at its end.

The quieter canzonetta of the second movement, with the solo violin's duets with flute (Kathleen Reynolds) and clarinetist Roy Zajac, was a contrast to the soloistic pyrotechnics of the Russian themed finale, leading almost inevitably to another standing ovation. The audience was destined to be on their feet yet one more time after Ms. Lewis's encore, Bach's E Major Partita (BWV 1006), in which she was able to bring out the seeming polyphonies from a single instrument, similar to the Bach cello suites.

The Symphony's performance of Michael Djupstrom's Dreams of Flight for large orchestra was the work’s California premiere (and only its second performance altogether, as it was first played by the Eugene Symphony this past February. In addition to the usual symphonic instrumentation it includes augmented percussion instruments such as various suspended cymbals, tom-toms, ratchet, crotales (small chromatically tuned cymbals), vibraphone, and xylophone.

The composer was present and offered explanatory remarks from the stage, noting that the “Dream of Flight” title came to him after the work was completed, and that he felt that the first movement seemed to evoke motion through water rather than flight, except in its final moment. Similarly the second of the two large movements (they're separated by a short interlude) seemed to him to have more the feel of running than of flying, save at the end where once again it was “poised to leap off and hover.”

The first movement was a bit reminiscent of Stravinsky's Firebird, beginning quietly in low strings and moving onward through a gradual but relentless stringendo. The short interlude has a misty texture of divisi strings beneath a soaring flute solo. The last movement seemed indeed to give an impression of a run, with occasional pauses for breath before moving forward once again. It's obviously a challenging piece for an orchestra with very inventive use of all the different percussion sounds sometimes fitting in, sometimes standing out. It was clearly enjoyable for the audience, a view I share.

The concert concluded with another perennial audience favorite, Ravel's Bolero written in 1928. Sometimes derided as a concerto for snare drum and orchestra, it has none the less become his most frequently performed work, appearing beyond the concert hall as film scores, the accompaniment to Olympic gold medal winning figure skating performances, flash mob performances by both professional and amateur orchestras, and arrangements ranging from brass bands to (alas!) massed kazoos.

It was originally written for a ballet, so perhaps conceived with that visual distraction in mind. As it is, its unswerving adherence to a two-bar ostinato in strictly constant tempo, an unchanged 3/4 time signature throughout, the only melody a repetition of two 16-bar phrases, and a similarly unchanged key of C major save for brief excursion into E major in the last few measures, suggest that the word “development” is probably mis-applied. Its description as “consisting wholly of orchestral texture without music, of one long, very gradual crescendo” could probably be considered derogatory, had it not come from the composer himself.

As it was, Symphony gave it a convincing performance, starting at the bare threshold of audibility and building almost imperceptibly at first to the fortissimo finale and almost shockingly sudden ending. As could be expected, the audience loved it, and Mr. Lecce-Chong gave various individual players solo bows, culminating with snare drum percussionist Jack Rutledge, who was ostentatiously fanned by neighboring players with their sheet music in recognition of his metronomic performance of the same two bars of music no less than 169 times.