Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra at Herbst Theatre, October 14, 2021

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra presents Schumann’s Reawakened Masterpieces featuring Shunske Sato
Herbst Theatre
Veterans' Building, San Francisco War Memorial Performing Arts Center, 401 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94102-4522 USA
8:00 PM, Thursday, October 14, 2021

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2021 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2021 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

• SCHUMANN Concerto for Violin in D minor
• SCHUMANN Requiem, Op. 148

• BACH Fuga a 3 Soggetto, “Unfinished Fugue” from The Art of Fugue
• SCHUMANN Concerto for Violin in D minor
• SCHUMANN Symphony No. 2 in C Major, Op. 61

Pre-Concert Talk by Tarik O’Regan and Richard Egarr (missed it, drat! stupid BART!)

[8:05 PM] {lights down; welcome, announcements, and thanks to all sorts of folks}
[8:09 PM] {Richard Egarr out; time for a Bach talk!}

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): Fuga a 3 Soggetti, “Unfinished Fugue” (Contrapunctus XIV) from The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 (ca. 1740-46)

1. [8:14 PM] Opus
   [8:22 PM] {work ends; RE off; some performers off while stage rearrangement happens for the next work}

[8:24 PM] {SS & RE enter; no talk before the next work commences}

Robert Schumann (1810-1856): Concerto for Violin in D minor, WoO 23 (1853)

1. [8:25 PM] In kräftigem, nicht zu schnellem Tempo
2. [8:39 PM] Langsam »
3. [8:44 PM] Lebhaft, doch nicht schnell
   [8:53 PM] {work ends; applause for a few minutes; set ends; break!}

[9:10 PM] {orchestra back onstage, starting to twitter and peep}
[9:15 PM] {tuning; lights down}
[9:17 PM] {RE enters; talks enthusiastically about Schumann}

Robert Schumann (1810-1856): Symphony No. 2 in C Major, Op. 61 (1846)

1. [9:20 PM] Sostenuto assai - Un poco più vivace - Allegro, ma non troppo
2. [9:32 PM] Scherzo: Allegro vivace
3. [9:39 PM] Adagio espressivo
4. [9:48 PM] {Schumann Symphony No. 2-IV} Allegro molto vivace
   [9:58 PM] {set ends; applause for a few minutes; show ends by 10 PM}

The really long list below comes from today's printed program. Unfortunately, PBO doesn't post that sort of information on their website (apparently it's not imporant? Certainly it's hard to keep track of!), and worse, there's nothing to indicate who came and went for the various pieces on tonight's program. Oh well, sometimes ya gotta take what you can get and be glad for that!

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra

• Kathryn Adduci: trumpet, baroque trumpet;
• Allen Biggs: principal timpani, percussion;
• Phoebe Carrai: cello (Anonymous, Italy, c. 1690);
• Thomas Carroll: clarinet;
• Maria Caswell: viola;
• Alex Cook: horn (Richard Seraphinoff, 2017, after M.A. Raoux, c. 1820);
• Karen Dekker: violin;
• Richard Egarr: music director, conductor;
• Chloe Fedor: violin;
• Stephen Goist: viola;
• Lisa Grodin: violin;
• Paul Hale: cello;
• Diane Heffner: clarinet;
• Gail Hernandez Rosa: viola;
• Dave Horn: contrabass;
• Tomà Iliev: violin;
• Greg Ingles: principal trombone;
• Chloe Kim: violin;
• Katherine Kyme: principal 2nd violin (Carlo Antonio Testore, Milan, 1720);
• Isabelle Seula Lee: violin;
• Tyler Lewis: violin;
• Morgan Little: cello;
• Manami Mizumoto: violin;
• Joseph Monticello: principal flute;
• Carla Moore: violin, concertmaster;
• Maxine Nemerovski: violin;
• Caroline Nicolas: cello;
• Ellie Nishi: viola (Anonymous, Germany, 18th century);
• Farley Pearce: contrabass;
• Mack Ramsey: trombone;
• Gonzalo X. Ruiz: oboe;
• Marc Schachman: principal oboe (H.A. Vas Dias, Decatur, 2001, after T. Stanesby, England, ca. 1710);
• Erik Schmalz: trombone;
• Andrew Schwartz: principal bassoon (Rainer Egger, Basel, 2003, after Johann Leonhard Ehe III, Nuremberg, 1746);
• Ezra Seltzer: cello;
• William Skeen: principal cello;
• Chiara Stauffer: violin;
• Kathi Stewart: flute;
• Noah Strick: violin;
• John Thiessen: principal trumpet;
• Jessica Troy: principal viola;
• Daniel Turkos: contrabass;
• Kate van Orden: bassoon;
• Jolianne von Einem: violin;
• Anna Washburn: violin;
• Aaron Westman: viola;
• Todd Williams: principal horn;
• Shelby Yamin: violin;
• Wen Yang: principal contrabass.

• Shunske Sato: violin, baroque violin.

So I bought tickets to selected PBO shows this season, but through some strange mix up, nothing is sent to me. This seems me into an anxious spiral as I prepare to leave the house for tonight's show: paper ticket in the usual drawer? Nope! E-ticket in dropbox with other shows? Nope, nothing! Back at the computer: boomerang'ed ticket email back in my inbox? Nada. WTF!? My blood pressure is rising: how can I get into the show without my ticket? Evidence in my calendar is pretty clear that I have a show. Where's the damn ticket? I search my email: nothing from my first guess, City Box Office. Second try: what has PBO sent? I find proof of purchase, yay! No ticket attachment. No info about fixing things. Heck! Better hit the road and plan on things being ok at the Herbst box office.

About an hour later, after a slow Bart trip from Rockridge to Civic Center, and a short walk past the unfortunates living on the street around the main library and UN Plaza, I arrive at the box office: my ticket is waiting, yay!

I'm still worked up, both physically from speedwalking over to the venue, and emotionally, over the just-finished tale of unjustified anxiety (you found the receipt, why worry?), but not wanting to repeat the vax check by going outside to cool off, I head in to my seat. It's kind of stuffy inside, but the orchestra is rattling and tittering away, and the noise makes for a welcome distraction while I cool down.

The first set is pretty good. I love Bach, so the highlight for me is the short opener. More fugues! I thought that Richard's assertion that by leaving the work intentionally unfinished Bach was asking a rhetorical question: “how would you carry it forward?,” was particularly interesting.

In the other hand, neither of the two Schumann pieces on the program really grabbed me: the performances were grand, but the music didn't really speak to me the way that Bach does. It was clear that Richard really liked the pieces, and that he was pleased with the performance as well. After the first movement of the second symphony he turned around and wiggled his eyebrows at the audience as if to say “how do like them apples?” It was a funny gesture! And after the second movement, he let loose with a “woohoo” and started clapping. Yeah, he was really into it!

I enjoyed Sato's solo playing in the Violin Concerto – he created a warm, burnished tone rather different from the piercing stridency typical of some violinists. I'm not expert enough to know how much that's a function of the player versus the instrument: something to ask about the next time I talk with a professional violinist! On the other hand, it seemed to me that Sato consistently out-paced Egarr & the PBO, as if he was playing to a metronome set slightly faster than everyone else. Again, I can't say what was really happening there: maybe Schumann write that sort of leading or tugging into the violin part, but I was distracted whenever i noticed it. Maybe they just needed more rehearsal together? I should ask my pal Garth whether he noticed that after he attend tomorrow's concert.

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!

Program Notes or program notes

Michael Zwiebach posted a review of the next night's show in Berkeley with SFCV. Curiously, the photos included in the review appear to be from tonight's show at Herbst. Guess you use what works best, eh?

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2021 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2021 event list! ☸ On to the next event!