NCCO presents Silver Season opening concert featuring Inon Barnatan
2016-09-15
First Congregational Church
2345 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA 94704-2201 USA
8:00 PM, Thursday, September 15, 2016

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2016 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2016 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

• Anton Webern: Langsamer Satz
• W.A. Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 13 in C Major, K. 415/387b
• Philip Glass: Symphony No. 3
• Peter Heidrich: Happy Birthday Variations

[8:07 PM lights down, announcements, band out]

1. [8:07 PM] Anton Webern (1883-1945): Langsamer Satz, arr. for string orchestra by Gerald Schwarz (1992)
   [set ends 8:18 PM; applause for a minute or so, then pause]

[8:19 PM; lights down, waiting]

W.A. Mozart (1756-1791): Piano Concerto No. 13 in C Major, K. 415/387b featuring Inon Barnatan

1. [8:19 PM] Allegro
2. [8:30 PM] Andante
3. [8:38 PM] Allegro
   [set ends 8:47 PM]

[9:09 PM lights down, announcements, band out]

Philip Glass (b. 1937): Symphony No. 3 for String Orchestra

1. [9:10 PM] Movement I
2. [9:15 PM] Movement II
3. [9:22 PM] Movement III
4. [9:33 PM] Movement IV
   [work ends 9:36 PM, off after a few minutes of applause]

[9:38 PM; lights down, waiting]

Peter Heidrich (b. 1935): Happy Birthday Variations

1. [9:39 PM] Theme
2. [9:39 PM] Variation 1 (after J. Sebastian Bach - in the style of a 4-part chorale)
3. [9:40 PM] Variation 2 (after J. Haydn - in the style of Quartet, Op. 76 No. 3)
4. [9:41 PM] Variation 3 (after W.A. Mozart - in the style of the “Dissonanzen” quartet KV 465)
5. [9:42 PM] Variation 4 (after L. van Beethoven - in the style of string quartet, Op. 59 No. 2)
6. [9:44 PM] Variation 5 (after R. Schumann - in the style of string quartet, Op. 41 No. 3)
7. [9:45 PM] Variation 6 (after J. Brahms - in the style of sextet, Op. 18)
8. [9:46 PM] Variation 7 (after R. Wagner - in the style of G. Abraham's string quartet version of Siegfried Idyll)
9. [9:46 PM] Variation 8 (after A. Dvorak - in the style of string quartet, Op. 96)
10. [9:47 PM] Variation 9 (after M. Reger - in the style of string quartet, Op. 109)
11. [9:48 PM] Variation 10 - in the style of Viennese music
12. [9:49 PM] Variation 11 - in the style of film music
13. [9:50 PM] Variation 12 - in the style of jazz
14. [9:51 PM] Variation 13 - in the style of tango
15. [9:52 PM] Variation 14 - in the style of Hungarian music
    [show ends 9:55 PM]

New Century Chamber Orchestra

• Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg: music director, violin;
• others vary slightly by performance, current list posted at http://ncco.org/about/musicians/

• Inon Barnatan: piano.

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!

Tonight's show started off strongly with a fine performance of Webern's haunting Langsamer Satz (Slow Movement), written in 1905 as a composition exercise assigned by his teacher, Arnold Schoenberg. My only complaint is that from my seat in the third row, about all I could see was the tips of the performer's heads poking up above the piano. So I listened with eyes closed!

The following work, Mozart's 13th Piano Concerto, was typically lively and cheery music. Now and then Mozart would drop in a surprise – a slow section inserted into the opening Allegro, an unexpected key modulation, etc. Just enough pizzazz to keep things interesting! As far as I could tell, Barnatan played the work from memory – a fine feat – and the way he pushed and pulled at the tempo in his cadenzas was marvelously fun to hear. I look forward to catching him again in the future!

Lou Fancher wrote a nice Promo article on Inon Barnatan – certainly worth a read if you like his work – and Rebecca Wishnia wrote a rather nit-picky follow-up review. I disagree strongly with her premise that works written for a particular ensemble (such as the opening piece by Webern) will necessarily “suffer” by being adapted to the needs or strengths of another ensemble (the string orchestra). My argument is that to make such a requirement is more or less equivalent to ordering that only native Italians might sing Verdi operas, or Germans for Wagner. Other forms of music (notably jazz) embrace change with a long-standing embrace – take what is good from a composition, and then show the listener something new. This is life. It is growth. It is an increase in the possibility for performance. While these experiments might not always succeed, to decree that they are not allowed or naturally inferior to the original is to miss the point: the celebration of the living, creative spirit embodied within the original work.

On the other hand, despite my argumentativeness, I agree with RW that the Glass piece represented the pinnacle of last night's concert. Bravo! Bravo!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2016 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2016 event list! ☸ On to the next event!