The Mission Chamber Orchestra of San Jose (MCOSJ), led by its new music director, Juan Cristóbal Palacios, gave a concert with a distinct Spanish flavor at the Hammer Theatre on Saturday, March 1.
Not that Camille Saint-Saëns’ Violin Concerto No. 3 in B Minor sounds conventionally Spanish. The coyly attractive melody of its slow movement evokes more of an Italian feel, but Saint-Saëns, one of France’s leading composers, happened to be in Spain in 1879 and 1880, when he wrote the work for the virtuoso Spanish violinist Pablo de Sarasate.
Unusually for a showpiece, this concerto contains no cadenzas, though it doesn’t need them. The music is virtually a nonstop display for the soloist, which is what Sarasate wanted in a concerto. There’s nothing exaggerated or ostentatious, but the solo part is impressive in the complex bowing and fingering needed to execute it. Everything is at the service of charming melodies, almost all of them introduced by the violin, and rhythmic motifs that form a coherent context.
For the most part, the orchestra contents itself with providing a platform on which the violin can showcase itself and with repeating melodies first played by the soloist.
Violinist Alex Eisenberg may have been physically undemonstrative in the spotlight, hardly moving and just rattling off this challenging music as if it were a straightforward exercise, but there was nothing casual or indifferent about his solo playing. His tone ranged from deep and rich in the first movement’s bold opening motif, without any heaviness that would weigh down the sprightly texture, to lightly dry in more lyrical passages. Effortlessness was the keynote here. Despite offering plenty of opportunity for Sarasate to show his abilities, Saint-Saëns was not out to dazzle the listener, and neither was Eisenberg.
The orchestra was rewarded for its patience during the concerto by being featured in the most vivid manner in the other Spanish work on the program, Manuel de Falla’s one-act ballet score El amor brujo (Love, the sorcerer), best known for its “Ritual Fire Dance.” It’s the story of a woman who tries, through sorcery, to free herself from being haunted by her late husband’s ghost and freely love another man.
The music cascades from proclamatory to stomping to flurrying, alternating with mysterious tremolos, drooping tranquility, and strumming introductions to solo passages. There’s a clock striking midnight and bells announcing sunrise. In context, the “Ritual Fire Dance” isn’t any more colorful than what surrounds it. The score was played with strong character and welcome flexibility by the orchestra. The intensity of the action and the overall coherence of the jagged music in another famous excerpt, the “Dance of Terror,” were particularly impressive.
Four of the 13 numbers are enriched by a vocalist. Mezzo-soprano Stephanie Sanchez sang these with diligence and in a distinctly deep and full voice, not always rising over the orchestra but consistently audible.
Several interludes on the program provided as much contrast as possible with these two essentially Romantic works. Igor Stravinsky’s two tiny Suites for Small Orchestra were written at the height of his neoclassical period in the 1920s, and they represent the composer at his most rigid and angular. Each suite consists of four movements of varied character, each movement about a minute long. Palacios and the orchestra squeezed as much lyrical flow out of this unlikely material as they could.
The concert began with Two Melodies for Strings, Op. 53, by Edvard Grieg. The ensemble was joined in this gentle music by players from the Piedmont Hills High School Chamber Orchestra, part of MCOSJ’s regular efforts to give local students the chance to play with seasoned musicians.
