Margo Kline: Santa Barbara Symphony Triumphs — Times Three

Powerful performances of works by Bach, Elgar and Beethoven were music to the ears

By Margo Kline, Noozhawk Contributor | Published on 02.23.2010

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The Santa Barbara Symphony gleamed with particular luster at its concerts Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon, dubbed “Double Treble,” with works by J.S. Bach, Sir Edward Elgar and Ludwig van Beethoven.

With Nir Kabaretti on the podium of The Granada and soloists from the orchestra’s opulent string section, the symphony continued to show an enthusiastic audience its best work.

First on the program was Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins, Strings and Harpsichord in D Minor, BWV 1043, featuring principal concertmaster Caroline Campbell and assistant concertmaster Serena McKinney as soloists. Since Bach was seldom not at the peak of his powers, it’s almost redundant to mention it here. But when he wrote this work, he was enjoying an especially fruitful assignment as Kappelmeister to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen.

During these years, 1717-23, Bach produced an astonishing array of masterpieces, including the Brandenburg concertos, the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier and, among many instrumental pieces, this concerto. Campbell and McKinney excelled in all three movements — in particular the middle, largo ma non tanto. Here, the two violins engaged in a heavenly dialogue, gently accompanied by the orchestra.

After the final allegro movement, the orchestra members not needed for Bach’s Baroque masterpiece filed on stage for Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro for Strings, Opus 47.

Elgar wrote this lively work in 1905, for the newly formed London Symphony Orchestra. The composer recounted later how he had several years earlier found his principal theme while traveling in Wales and hearing local people singing folk melodies. On Sunday, the piece was augmented by violinists Campbell and McKinney, assistant principal violist Kaila Potts and principal cellist Geoffrey Rutkowski in a string quartet at the front of the orchestra. Potts was especially moving in her viola rendering of the “Welsh” theme beloved by Elgar.

After these riches, the orchestra and audience enjoyed an intermission and then returned for the final selection: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Opus 55, the Eroica. Here, Kabaretti and the orchestra went into overdrive, as it were, with this mighty work originally intended as a tribute to Napoleon Bonaparte.

The Romantic Age of music was born with this symphony, with which Beethoven meant to honor the Corsican who was re-creating the map, and governments of the European continent. When Bonaparte chose to have himself crowned Emperor of France in 1804, Beethoven was furious and tore out the section of the Eroica’s title page bearing Napoleon’s name. (The manuscript, with its jagged hole, is kept in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna.)

Beethoven had the last word by rewriting the dedication: “To Celebrate the Memory of a Great Man.”

In any event, Kabaretti conducted the orchestra in a thrilling ride through the four movements, culminating in the finale allegro molto with which Beethoven brought matters to a suitable and brilliant conclusion.

— Margo Kline covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributor.

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