Listeners who like music to paint pictures in their mind’s eyes had an Impressionist bonanza in the final program of the Marin Symphony’s 60th season on Sunday afternoon. First, in a specially curated approach to five of Debussy’s 24 Préludes, came two distinctly framed views of these evocative works. Pianist Joyce Yang performed the original keyboard selections; each was followed immediately by contemporary British composer Colin Matthews’ orchestration. Debussy’s symphonically scaled tone poem La Mer closed the proceedings. Ravel, that gifted orchestral colorist of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, was represented on this all-French bill at Marin Center by his Piano Concerto in G Major, with Yang as soloist.
In his brief opening remarks before the Préludes, Music Director and Conductor Alasdair Neale advised the audience that the piano and orchestral versions were not in competition with each other. That said, it was impossible not to compare. The side-by-side presentation almost compelled it. But what might have come off as a contrived exercise in musical pedagogy — a kind of Francophile version of Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra — proved to be an engaging and substantial undertaking.
Yang set a high bar right off, with her assertive, rhythmically stretchy, and slyly comic reading of “Minstrels.” Ranging from percussive crispness to lingering harmonies to expansive chordal passages, she made the piano aspire to something orchestral. Debussy’s illustrative genius was on full display.
Matthews’ setting of the same piece seemed at first to be trying too hard, with more showy color (from the brasses, woodwinds, and a tambourine) than content. But Neale and his players also mined a vein of rollicking, almost reckless burlesque that Yang didn’t encompass. Neither version was “right” or “better.” They were instructively different, and not just because of the contrasting media. Interpretation, a different way of seeing and hearing the same thing, was what mattered.
The rolled chords and silvery runs of Yang’s Les Collines d’Anacapri (The hills of Anacapri) became something more stately, patiently liquid, and luminous in the orchestral version, set off by the sparkling lights of the piccolo and the oboe. The fascinations continued when Yang, who had not rehearsed this collaboration with the orchestra in advance of Sunday’s performance, overindulged the sustaining pedal in her account of “Bruyères.” Was she, I couldn’t help wondering, trying to sound less pianistic and more orchestral in her treatment of Debussy’s heathers? And then, as if in response, Matthews’ setting led off with a spare, anything-but-lush, string-quartet-style brushstroke, beautifully rendered by the players. Expectations altered. The boundaries blurred.
What might have come off as a contrived exercise in musical pedagogy … proved to be an engaging and substantial undertaking.Not everything worked. The orchestra sounded sluggish after the windblown storms and dissonant clusters of Yang’s “Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest” (What the West Wind saw). And, despite some fine details, neither piano nor orchestra fully captured the grandeur and mystery of “La cathédrale engloutie” (The sunken cathedral). The orchestra made some notable blunders near the end.
Tonic Effect, in Sum
Still, the sum effect of these double Préludes was tonic and invigorating. All great music is transformative in one way or another. Here the changes and alchemy were set out to ponder directly. These five juxtapositions became a layered conversation about timbre, tempo, and texture — and finally about the endless variety of music-making itself.
Yang returned after intermission to give an intense, propulsive, and slightly chilly reading of the solo part in Ravel’s Concerto. The gifted Yang, here making her Marin Symphony debut, can draw on an impressive technical arsenal. The precisely crystalline repeated notes in the opening Allegramente alone were “wow”-worthy. She summoned a mighty tone to cut through the orchestral thickets without pounding when she needed to. Yang was also tactful and responsive in letting the keening English horn solo (tenderly voiced by Laura Reynolds), in the second movement, sing out over her languid meanderings.
The gifted Yang … can draw on an impressive technical arsenal. The precisely crystalline repeated notes in the opening Allegramente alone were “wow”-worthy.Yet some of her effects, in both phrasing and dynamic shifts, seemed willed rather than organic, more thought than felt. Neale drew a firm performance from the orchestra, with notably fine work from the woodwinds throughout. The result was admirable without being fully absorbing.
The season ended with a satisfying, multihued reading of La Mer. From the spare but steady early light of the opening movement to the translucent shimmer of the waves and the surging forces in Debussy’s masterly interplay of wind and sea, the Marin Symphony rose to the occasion. While the woodwinds once again earned special notice, the strings provided movement, warmth, and silvery light. Some of the percussion sounded too enthusiastic, though the powerful tide washed it all along.
It’s no small feat to make such a familiar piece seem fresh. It happened twice in Marin, first with those refashioned Préludes and then in a joyous visit to the sea.