Berkeley Symphony focusing on France
Arts center to host chamber series concert featuring wide range of country's classical music
On Feb. 4 at the Piedmont Center for the Arts, following in the footsteps of the Berkeley Symphony to visit France will be possible without traveling more than 5,000 miles or enduring the cost and physical discomfort of a 14hour trans-Atlantic flight.
Presented in the acoustically generous venue, the symphony's “Spirited Impressions” chamber series concert (berkeleysymphony.org/event/spirited-impressions) will feature three vibrant, high-caliber Bay Area chamber ensemble musicians and a program of four romantic and expressive works drawn from or inspired by French repertoire.
Pianist Alison Lee, violinist Sarah Elert and cellist Douglas Machiz bring a rich blend of individual qualities and keen listening based on trust to the performance, says Tiffany Fajardo, an oboist and the Berkeley Symphony's patron services manager.
“The listening requirement when playing in a chamber ensemble is so great that you almost don't listen to your own voice,” she said. “The intensity means they trust in themselves and know their music but also trust each other to make musical choices that highlight each other's musicality.
“You're listening for phrasing, articulation, to hear everyone's in sync when that's the music's goal, or highlighting diversity when it's called for.”
Fajardo, who holds a bachelor of music degree in oboe performance from the University of the Pacific, says that playing in chamber groups allows for a level of listening she finds translatable to other areas.
“In conversations, I'm more attuned to the ways people speak and how I respond to them. The
chamber music experience heightens your awareness of people around you every day in real life.”
Asked about a specific quality or role played by each member of the trio, she says violinist Elert has variety and depth and can “pull out the emotions the music is supposed to convey” and that pianist Lee is multitalented as a teacher and performer.
“She (Lee) has a lovely way of ensuring the listener is drawn in. She never overplays, and that level of playing earns respect,” Fajardo says.
She adds that cellist Machiz contributes an essential, grounded foundation out of which all three musicians can create nuanced reflective passages projecting vulnerability but also be used as a platform to spring into lighthearted, energetic or sparkling dynamics within French repertoire.
Gabriel Fauré's “Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor” was one of his final works, composed when he likely was completely deaf.
“The music was probably not heard by him properly,” says Fajardo. “But even so, there are intervals that are distinctly and purposefully
dissonant and you have to have good inclinations to make those sound good.
“Especially with the piano, which has fixed tone, the violin and cello (players) have to really listen to the overtones to find the cohesiveness that's essential as the dissonance clashes.”
Swiss composer Arthur Honegger, who spent a great deal of his life in France, was traditionally trained and focused on formal harmonic clarity. Fajardo says while his “Sonatine for Violin and Cello” also has
dissonances, the call-andresponse between the two musicians is a more dominant feature.
“In the third movement, it's virtuoso and playful, but they have to avoid competition and maintain a lighter quality,” she said. “They have to create a joint sound more than highlight their individual instruments.
“The first movement actually starts with the two instruments in complete rhythmic and harmonic unison. Then they branch apart before coming back
to combine. They feed off of each other all along, but the total end product is cohesive.”
The Berkeley Symphony has enjoyed a long association with Bay Area-based composer Jean Ahn. Her “Berkeley Fanfare” composition, commissioned by the organization in 2008, presented a bold, 5-minute work that reflects the traditions of her native Korea and directions she has pursued with electronics and other contemporary-meetstraditional explorations. “A
Flashback of Ravel” will be Ahn's composition for the “Spirited Impressions” concert.
“It's a reflection on French impressionistic composition,” Fajardo says of Ahn's piece. “She perceives an actual Ravel trio, one of the most monumental pieces in string trio repertoire, and uses one of its long-phrase, main themes as the base but not as a direct quote. There's ornamentation and reinterpretation of Ravel's theme and interplay that needs to be highly coordinated.
“The ensemble in this work is required to be on the same wavelength and operate as one engine. Reaching that intermesh takes time. It would be difficult to start a concert with this, but these musicians know each other well, and even so they'll be listening to each other diligently.”
Claude Debussy's “Piano Trio in G Major” provides distinct contrast to the prior works in that there is more clarity, lyricism and a sensibility that Fajardo suggests is expected of French music forms.
“The distribution is even, so each instrument's individuality comes forward,” she says. “It's expressive without being difficult to play, so they can produce beautiful sound with ease.”
As with the other selections, the score includes challenges. A tone shift between the second and third movements means the musicians must convincingly render the second movement's tender, deep, darkhued quality before shifting into the scherzo that pulls from the Russian and Asian elements that inspired Debussy and serves up a brisk, lively and light atmosphere.
“To sink into the energy of the second movement, pouring your heart out with emotional rawness and vulnerability, and then follow with the third movement that sounds delicate, like ornamental bells ringing on camels that are traveling through the desert, is not simple,” says Fajardo.
For audiences, Fajardo says the concentration and deep listening between the musicians is appreciated but not their concern.
Instead, she says, a feeling of spiritual wellness prevails when listening to Fauré's water-like ripples on the piano and sense of flow in long cello phrases; Debussy's chords that ascend and descend with the trio moving in parallel lockstep; Honegger's energetic interchange between two voices; and Ahn's imaginative reinterpretation of a French classic.