The next concert by this summer’s Festval Orchestra — at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, July 6, in the Granada Theatre — will be under the direction of the German conductor and composer, Matthias Pintscher (born 1971). They will play Pintscher’s “Towards Osiris: Study for Orchestra” (2005-06); Alexander Zemlinsky‘s “Sinfonietta, Opus 23” (1934); and Johannes Brahms‘ “Piano Quartet No. 1 in g-minor, Opus 25” (1861), orchestrated by Arnold Schoenberg (1937).
This is an emphatically Germanic program (I would have said “heavily Germanic,” were it not for the curious fact that all three works sound rather more nimble and playful than their nativity would lead us to expect).
Since 2012, Pintscher has been music director of the Ensemble InterContemporain, which was founded in 1972 by Pierre Boulez to promote contemporary chamber music, the first ensemble wholly dedicated to new music and still the most important.
Pintscher’s “Towards Osiris” is very much an expression of the InterContemporain aesthetic, chaotic on the surface, brilliantly organized underneath, and overall quite appealing.
Zemlinsky (1871-1942), alas, is destined to be remembered mainly as Schoenberg’s brother-in-law. He was, in fact, the only musician ever to instruct Schoenberg in the fundamentals of counterpoint, though Schoenberg chose his own path from the first, and the two composers sound nothing like each other.
Zemlinsky’s music is more in line with the conservative modernists like Franz Schreker or Hans Pfitzner. The “Sinfonietta” is a light-hearted work, graceful and somewhat impressionistic.
The Brahms transcription is a major work. Schoenberg had always maintained that the “First Piano Quartet” was originally intended to be Brahms’ first symphony, which he had never gotten around to orchestrating. In 1937, Otto Klemperer gave him a chance to show the world what he meant, commissioning this orchestration and premiering it with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Unlike his hero, Gustav Mahler, Schoenberg worshiped Brahms, and this transcription is a miracle of sympathy.
Every note is Brahms, yet Brahms freed from the burden of being the standard bearer of German music. There is a shimmering translucence throughout the work which Brahms himself was rarely able to achieve in his orchestral works.
Tickets to this concert are $40-$100 (7-17s free, with ticketed adult), and can be purchased at the Granada Theatre ticket office, 1214 State St., by phone at 805-969-8787 or 805-899-2222, or online at https://ticketing.granadasb.org/single/SYOS.aspx?p=13176.
— Gerald Carpenter covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributing writer. He can be reached at gerald.carpenter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are his own.