The Santa Barbara Symphony has transferred its February concerts to the Lobero Theater, 33 E. Canon Perdido St., while repairs proceed on the Granada Theater’s water damage.
In addition, both concerts will take place the same day, at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 17. (Ticket-holders affected by the venue change should go online to www.TheSymphony.org.)
Under the baton of Maestro Nir Kabaretti, the symphony will perform Edward Elgar’s “Serenade for Strings in e-minor, Opus 21 (1892); Antonín Dvořák’s “Violin Concerto in a-minor, Opus 53” (1879); and Ludwig Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 7 in A-Major, Opus 92 (1812).”
Violin soloist in the Dvořák will be the universally admired Sirena Huang, “one of her generation’s most celebrated violinists.”
The Beethoven is a venue-driven substitution for Louise Farrenc’s “Symphony No. 3 in g-minor, Opus 36,” which would have been splendid — the present obscurity of Louise Farrenc (1804-1875), a great composer, is the clearest example of musicological gender bias I have yet to encounter — but apparently impractical.
I’m not complaining (especially since Maestro Kabaretti has firmly stated his intention of rescheduling Farrenc’s symphony later on): no music lover on earth would complain of a chance to hear one of Beethoven’s most beautiful and exciting symphonies performed by this wonderful orchestra.
Elgar is always better in the concert hall, where his dense scores have room to breathe, than on record, where things can get mushy. The “Serenade” is never so, however, live or on vinyl or as an mp3, but simply shimmering and exquisite.
My main reason for filing this awfully belated preview is to thank the Santa Barbara Symphony for scheduling the Dvořák concerto, one of the greatest romantic concertos, full of drama and exaltation and stirring, heartbreaking melodies.
It continues to baffle me how infrequently this concerto is performed live. (The only live performance I have heard took place, in fact, many years ago in the Lobero Theatre. The fiddler then was a woman, too, and one who understood to the fullest the sheer physicality of the work, a rebellion against the law of gravity.)
Tickets to either of these concerts are, if they are not both sold out, $80, and can be purchased, if available, in person at the Lobero, by phone at 805-963-0761, or online at www.checkout.lobero.com/19143/19145.