Virtuosos perform for audience of one
Symphony’s new program without crowds presents essence of music
Orchestral musicians are used to performing in groups. Most often they muster in massive hordes of 100 or more to raise a glorious noise together, or else in intimate chamber ensembles of three or four.
But what happens when the COVID19 pandemic puts a hold on even that kind of communal effort? And, for that matter, prevents audience members from assembling?
The San Francisco Symphony’s solution to that conundrum is a new outreach program, called 1:1, that strips music down to its bare bones. One musician, one listener, communicating through music in the most primal way.
On a windy afternoon Thursday, Aug. 6, principal trombonist Timothy Higgins was holding forth on one of the outdoor terraces of Davies Symphony Hall, providing bespoke entertainment for longtime Symphony subscriber Abby Johnson.
In these worrisome times, Higgins told her, he’d been finding solace in the more lyrical and songful corners of his instrument’s repertoire (most of which, to be honest, is transcribed from music written for French horn or other instruments). So against the backdrop of rumbling traffic and construction noise rising from Van Ness Avenue, Higgins unleashed an alluring stream of music by Schumann, Vaughan Williams, Strauss and Bach — tuneful selections seemingly designed to bring balm to the soul.
“I thought it was an interesting way of presenting music, especially with such a busy background,” Johnson told The Chronicle later by phone. “I was able to get that noise out of my head when Tim was playing, because he’s such a beautiful player.
“I’m just happy the musicians have this way to present music to their constituency.”
1:1 (the colon is pronounced “to”), which launched July 16 and occurs every Thursday, is one of a range of initiatives that the orchestra has begun — like so many of their colleagues — to keep the arts alive until the day when larger groups of performers and patrons can once again be together in person.
The individual performances run about 30 minutes, which is long enough for a few short selections or one complete Bach cello suite. The organizers run them backtoback for the duration of one afternoon, alternating between Davies’ two outdoor terraces for maximal efficiency.
Pandemic protocols are strictly observed. Performers and listeners stay about 20 feet apart. Everyone is masked, except for those like Higgins who need their mouths to perform. Nobody enters the hall.
It’s not what anyone would call an ideal artistic experience. In spite of certain theories about the permeability of music and noise, the exertions of a frontend loader or the screech of a passing bus lose their charm as musical counterpoint after the first time or two. And music for one lone instrument — even one as robust as a bass trombone — tends to dissipate quickly into the atmosphere.
But there’s also an intimacy and directness about the setup that has its own appeal. Cellist Amos Yang delivered a helpful impromptu introduction Thursday before performing Bach’s Sixth Cello Suite, intermingled with some personal reflections about life during the pandemic.
Just as touchingly, his audience talked back. There’s a little leeway about the “one listener” policy, which can be extended to include members of the same household, so Alejandro Cerda and Bonnie Lam — together with their 6monthold daughter Philippa, who slept contentedly through the entire performance — were there to hear the music and chat with Yang beforehand.
“There’s a vulnerability about the format that I love,” Yang said afterward. “During any performance, you have to expect that some part of the audience is going to mentally drift away.
I know it’s extremely dicey these days to attribute a general characteristic to any group of people by nationality or otherwise. I’m doing it anyway by saying the Irish are such damn good writers.
Not all of them, I know. But when I’m bowled over by the graceful, lyrical nature of a piece of prose, more often than not there’s an Irish writer behind it.
There’s been lots of speculation about why the Irish are such literary heavyweights, considering the small size and population of the island. Some say it’s the country’s turbulent history; over the centuries, the Irish have been repeatedly conquered and repressed, with each influx of invaders leaving behind at least a trace of their own ways of storytelling.
The Irish gift for words is oral as well. A number of years ago, I was in Dublin, and I asked a cab driver to drop me off at the edge of St. Stephen’s Green at about 8 p.m. I was meeting a friend at the famous Shelbourne Hotel and was early, so I wanted to stroll a bit.
“Be careful, lassie,” the driver said. “They’d steal the harness off of a nightmare.” Have you ever heard a cabbie speak so poetically?
Bram Stoker, author of the Gothic horror novel “Dracula,” is the protagonist of “Shadowplay” by Joseph O’Connor, my latest favorite Irish novel. Stoker was also the personal assistant to renowned Shakespearean actor Sir Henry Irving and business manager of Irving’s Lyceum Theatre in London. A manipulative, alcoholic narcissist, Irving repeatedly abused the mildmannered Stoker and is said to be the inspiration for the character of “Dracula.” “Shadowplay” is a reimagining of the reallife relationship among the two men and the acclaimed actress Ellen Terry.
The novel takes place against the lurid background of Oscar Wilde’s trial for “indecency” (homosexuality was a crime in England at the time) and during Jack the Ripper’s rampage through London. The book is brimming with O’Connor’s gorgeous language, such as “the mellow dreeping meadows with their byres and barns and crucified scarecrows,” “Twines of washing … strung across middenheaps serenaded by furious dogs” and “a mangy London crow staring … like a cornerboy.”
Here’s O’Connor on the Americans and their use of language: “These colonials approach English as though blaming it for murder.”
Ireland’s history of conquest and colonization, of famine and mass emigration, and of resistance, rebellion and civil war etched its literature with a series of ruptures and revivals. It is the unfailing Irish spirit, marked by the people and circumstances that tried to change them, that makes the country’s authors so great.
Want to go deeper into contemporary Irish literature? As we sink into the fog of summer, pick up a book by Colm Tóibín (”Brooklyn”), Anne Enright (”The Green Road”), Sally Rooney (”Normal People”), Colum McCann (”Apeirogon”) or John Banville (”Time Pieces”), and imagine yourself snuggled before the fire in an Irish countryside cottage. I can’t think of a lovelier way to spend an afternoon.