The Santa Barbara Symphony, flagship of our local classical music ensembles, sails into spring with a program they call Romance in a New Key, performed at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 23, and 3 p.m. Sunday, April 24 at the Granada Theatre.
The concerts, conducted by Maestro Nir Kabaretti, feature the spectacular Israeli pianists Sivan Silver and Gil Garburg (one piano; four hands).
The program will consist of the world premiere of the “Concerto for Piano (4-hands) and String Orchestra,” adapted by Richard Dünser (b. 1959) from Robert Schumann‘s “Piano Quartet in Eb-Major, Opus 47 (1842);” the Fourth Movement “Allegro vivace” from Franz Schubert “Sonata in C major for Piano Duet, D. 812” (1824); and Felix Mendelssohn’s “Symphony No. 3 in a-minor, Opus 56, ‘Scottish’” (1829-42).
“In my work, external musical elements always play an important role: autobiographical sketches, literary references, images, moods …,” says composer Dünser. “They penetrate the work and, together with the structures inherent in it, create a fabric, a network of relationships and mutual influences.
“Everything grows into one another and forms a larger, super-ordinate whole that can also dialectically include its opposite, ruptures, unrelatedness, fragmentation. At first hearing, the various figures seem quite free, but they are very often subject to a precise formal plan: Developments, processes, atmospheric sound islands, outbreaks, silences are built into a multi-layered architecture of the composition.
“Distant mirror images, mirages, mirages, the remembered, the disappeared, the reappeared appear as if from dark dreams and form the mental landmarks and sounds from the innermost. My music wants to reach out to listeners and viewers, achieve resonance and social relevance, win the audience as a partner without pandering to them; evoke reflection, sadness, but also enthusiasm and understanding.
“My ideal is that of a work of art that focuses and bundles all the parameters of music (and sometimes of theatre, literature, the visual arts) in an overall dramaturgy, summing them up on a higher level and allowing them to interact. To this end, the compositional technique must be a complex one, exploring the totality of means, but tamed by a will to unity in diversity, with the aim of subordinating all means to a dramaturgical whole.”
“Piano music for four hands has a long and beautiful tradition,” observes Kabaretti. “It was used as a way to spread music and symphonic pieces (in pre-technology or digital eras) for people to play at home with their family and friends.
“The very first famous piano duo was by two tremendous composers and pianists, Saint-Saëns and Liszt, who coincidentally both worked and played in Paris around the time when Van Gogh was living in Paris. It is always fascinating for me to see and hear how two pianists share one instrument, playing with four hands, and watching Sivan & Gil is an enchanting experience!”
Often in contemporary concert programs, I see the hand of C.J. Jung‘s “synchronicity” at work. In this one, it is inescapable. Not only do we find the Schumann “Piano Quartet,” after languishing for years in obscurity, in two different concerts in the same week, but the Schubert Sonata that follows the Schumann on the Symphony program, was always heard by Schumann as a “a Symphony transcribed for piano.”
Even when a Schubert monograph of the score appeared that was clearly marked “Sonata,” Schumann clung to his notion of the work as an “orchestral” piece, and spoke often of it to his friend and protégé, Johannes Brahms (Schumann’s influence on Brahms is usually underrated; plus Brahms had fallen in love with Clara, and remained close to her for the rest of their lives).
In 1855, the year before Schumann died, Brahms urged his friend Joseph Joachim to orchestrate the sonata — perhaps to liberate the symphony imprisoned there — and Joachim did so. As the “Symphony in C-Major,” the work has been on and off of concert programs ever since.
Mendelssohn seldom used music in his works that he had not himself written. Even in the “Scottish” Symphony (not “Scotch,” which the Scots abhor), he steers clear of Scottish folk tunes: the symphony is an evocation of landscape, not history or culture.
The sole exception I know of is his “Reformation” Symphony, which makes use of several Lutheran hymns (Felix’s Jewish father, quarreling with his rabbi, had his son baptized and raised as a Protestant, incidentally making him eligible for all sorts of jobs that would have otherwise been closed to him).
In any case, fans of the “Italian” Symphony notwithstanding, the “Scottish” is Mendelssohn’s greatest work in the form.
“’Romance in a New Key’ is presented in collaboration with ‘Through Vincent’s Eyes: Van Gogh and His Sources’ at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, continuing an artistic synergy between the two organizations,” says the symphony.
Romance in a New Key is generously sponsored by Principal Concert Sponsors Sarah and Roger Chrisman; Artist Sponsor Christine A. Green; and Selection Sponsor Jean Rogers. The Symphony’s 2021-22 Season Sponsors are Sarah and Roger Chrisman; Corporate Season Sponsor Montecito Bank & Trust; and Season Grand Venue Sponsor The Granada Theatre.
Tickets to Romance in a New Key are $31-$156; they can be purchased in person at the Granada box office, 1214 State St., by phone at 805-899-2222, by email at boxoffice@granadasb.org, or online at https://ticketing.granadasb.org/15641.
— 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.