RAFAEL PAYARE’S CELEBRATION OF BRILLIANCE
San Diego Symphony Musical Director Rafael Payare returned to the Rady Shell on Saturday to conduct a concert devoted to musical Impressionism.
Although the program was not billed as such, Claude Debussy’s “La Mer,” the second suite from Maurice Ravel’s “Daphnis et Chloé,” and Esa-Pekka Salonen’s “Nyx” are all noteworthy examples of Impressionism.
Debussy bristled at the application of the artistic term to his music, yet the bulk of his output from 1894 to 1913 exemplifies Impressionism in music.
In these works, Debussy elevated timbre and texture to new importance. His disregard of traditional harmony permitted him to follow one chord with whatever chord pleased him most, to make harmonies out of whole-tone and pentatonic scales, and to use extended chords that previously were required to resolve to another chord as stable sonorities on their own.
“La Mer” is subtitled “three symphonic sketches,” but these movements were the closest Debussy ever came to writing a symphony. There are brief motives that cycle through each movement, although you won’t find
many listeners humming them afterwards. The ending has a powerful inevitability with several rhythmic layers churning away to conclude on a triumphant triple forte major chord.
Payare led the orchestra through a finely nuanced performance that savored the relaxed sections and celebrated brilliance in the busiest moments, aided throughout by top-notch work from the brass and percussion sections.
Ravel is frequently labeled an Impressionist, but his insistence on the primacy of melody and clear, delineated forms really should exclude him from that category. Consider his “Mother Goose Suite,” with its straightforward movements and charming tunes.
It appeared on the program as a late substitution
for Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 after scheduled soloist Veronika Eberle had visa problems.
“Mother Goose Suite” was given the detailed performance we’ve come to expect from Payare and his musicians, with exquisite solos by oboist Sarah Skuster, English horn player Andrea Overturf, clarinetist Sheryl Renk, contrabassoonist Leyla Zamora and concertmaster Jeff Thayer.
“Daphnis et Chloé” is one work of Ravel’s that could safely be called “Impressionistic.” The second suite consists of three numbers from the end of this hourlong ballet. The opening musical sunrise features dizzying woodwind runs, forest rustlings, and a long, achingly beautiful melody in the strings. The last part of the suite is an orgiastic dance in 5/4 time. Payare guided the waves of sound building and peaking; his gestures became broader as the music grew more furious.
The possibility of a complete performance of “Daphnis et Chloé” with chorus in the renovated hall is tantalizing indeed.
Salonen’s “Nyx” is a 19-minute work inspired by the Greek deity who represented night and shadows. It begins with four horns sounding an amorphous texture with a regular pulse. Their harmony is based on a symmetrical construction called an octatonic scale. Its symmetry means that no note sounds like a tonic, and Salonen uses this throughout “Nyx” to create restlessness.
Moods unpredictably transform, but the underlying harmonies are relatively easy to perceive. I detect the influence of John Adams, but without his 19th-century rhetoric of the grand arrival. Salonen writes: “Its themes and ideas essentially keep their properties throughout the piece while the environment surrounding them keeps changing constantly.” Masterfully orchestrated, it was performed with dark mystery by Payare and the orchestra.