If every piece of architecture had its own inherent sound, the church of Mission San Juan Bautista would be heard for miles. The relatively high-ceilinged structure (long and narrow, made of wood and plaster, and primitively painted), whose interior was completed in 1817, creates a resounding acoustic like none other I've experienced. With the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra squeezed in front of the straight-backed wooden pews — the musicians have so little room that some of them sit literally behind the vertical pillars that support the ceiling — the sound at forte and above hurtles down the church's aisles like a sonic tsunami.
Forget about space between sounds. Instead, imagine sound upon sound, texture upon texture, full, glistening, and as colorful as Dolly Parton's get-up. (If that incongruous simile causes you to sit up and take notice, imagine how thrilling it is to listen to music in such a venue.)
Marin Alsop
Although Kenneth Fuchs did not write his United Artists (2006) with the Mission's acoustic in mind, it seemed a perfect fit. A tribute to the musicians of the London Symphony Orchestra, who recorded three of Fuchs' works for Naxos in September 2003, the short work's dramatic, resounding chords and glorious, ringing orchestral flourishes constitute a modern fanfare of sorts. Given the royal treatment that it received from conductor Marin Alsop and her summer band, the composer's beaming face at the work's conclusion matched the bright, upbeat heralds of his euphonic crowd-pleaser.
Striking Songs of Love, Loss
The West Coast premiere of Aaron Jay Kernis' Valentines, for soprano and orchestra (1999-2000, revised this year), took us into far meatier territory. The four songs, written for Renée Fleming, are dedicated to the memory of one of Kernis' principal teachers, Jacob Druckman. (Valentine is also the title of a solo bass piece by Druckman.) Set to multilayered texts of love and loss by contemporary British poet Carol Ann Duffy, Kernis' complex, often dissonant music brilliantly illuminates the sting of such lines as "I give you an onion. Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips, possessive and faithful. ... Lethal. Its scent will cling to your fingers, cling to your knife." Kernis' writing in the second piece, "Miles Away," soars like a Strauss song, while the glistening, shimmering textures in the third, "Mrs. Midas," lead to an operatic climax.
As sung by the extraordinary Susan Narucki, whose spot-on intonation, superb control, and vocal beauty went a long way toward compensating for indistinct diction, the songs resonated on both conscious and subconscious levels. (Kernis later told me that Narucki, who has just recorded this cycle and two others with piano accompaniment for Koch Classics, has assimilated the full measure of his songs.)
Narucki was in wonderful voice, and was far more expressive than when recently heard in Sonoma City Opera's premiere of Libby Larsen's Every Man Jack. Her soft, long-held B-flat at the close of the final song, "Who Loves You," was a thing of wonder. Although I wish her forthcoming recording were with orchestra, perhaps the piano version will shed additional light on the complexity of Kernis' writing.
Honoring the Original Settlers
Kevin Puts, who has been featured annually at the festival since 2003, wrote his Symphony No. 4 (2007) after festival patron Howard Hansen requested something inspired by the histories of the Mission and town of San Juan Bautista. Puts turned to the music of the area's early inhabitants, the Mutsun Indians, who refused to cede to the friars' attempts to replace their native melodies with the so-called "civilized" music of their Christian colonizers.
The first movement, "Prelude Mission San Juan Bautista ca. 1800," consciously attempted to exploit an echo effect inherent in the Mission's reverberant acoustic. The music moved from the archaic to the dramatic and elegiac, paving the way for the second movement, titled "Arriquetpon," an imaginary compendium loosely based on Mutsun shapes and motives recorded in the 1818 diary of Francisco Arroyo de la Cuesta. The tunes, simple and folklike, were soon embellished with orchestration that suggested the introduction to Gershwin's Porgy and Bess.
The movement built to a big, colorful flourish, and ended with drumming that led to an "Interlude" rehash of the symphony's opening theme. Far more dramatic than before, it grew to alarming proportions as phrases repeated over and over in quasi-cataclysmic (albeit redundant) fashion. The final "Healing Song," which the composer describes "as appropriate as ever ... in the midst of the world climate," was redolent of much of the overly sentimental New Age music that has come my way over the years.
While I thought the weakest parts of Symphony No. 4 resembled catchy sound effects and familiar techniques masking a dearth of ideas — a fellow critic considered the conclusion right out of Sibelius — the symphony brought virtually the entire, cheering audience to its feet.
Jason Victor Serinus regularly reviews music and audio for Stereophile, SFCV, Classical Voice North America, AudioStream, American Record Guide, and other publications. The whistling voice of Woodstock in She’s a Good Skate, Charlie Brown, the longtime Oakland resident now resides in Port Townsend, Washington.
