Marin Alsop claims variety is a goal of her Cabrillo Festival programming. Plenty of that was heard in the festival’s two full orchestra programs last weekend. Nine of 10 works performed Friday and Saturday nights at Civic Auditorium were composed since 2003, while one of the best, Shuko Mizuno’s Natsu, dates from 1988. Born in 1934, the shy Mizuno seemed a bit shell-shocked by the Cabrillo orchestra’s brilliant performance and the boisterous audience response that followed. From the podium, Alsop described the work—the title of which means “summer” in Japanese—as “harmonically dense” and its composer as the “Japanese Rouse,” referring to one of the Americans she has long championed at Cabrillo.
Mizuno’s 25-minute symphonic poem does indeed bear comparison with some of Pulitzer Prize winner Christopher Rouse’s single-movement scores, especially where the full orchestra explodes in a tapestry of mind-boggling complexity. Yet, for all its denseness, Mizuno keeps the texture transparent, no small achievement when everyone on stage is furiously engaged. (How Alsop protects her ears against the fortissimo onslaughts she conjures up is a closely held secret.) Otherwise, however, Mizuno’s textures tend toward a warmly sonorous character, in contrast to Rouse’s predictable edginess. Moreover, Natsu provides moments of intimacy, calling on only a few players and cameo solos of great delicacy.
The Saturday program also delivered some refreshingly welcome news from Iran in the form of a grand, romantic piano concerto by ex-pat Behzad Ranjbaran, a graduate of the Teheran Conservatory, Indiana University and Juilliard. Redolent of Khatchaturian’s grand piano concerto, this 2008 work also carried its fair share of local folkloric colorisms. The dramatic first movement, with powerful outbursts against soulfully fragile moments, was followed in turn by Distant Dreams, a nocturnal fantasy, then a festive finale. Soloist Jean-Yves Thibaudet—Alsop’s “favorite pianist”—displayed a remarkably complimentary color palette of his own, and sizzling virtuosity.
The concert opened with Elena Kats-Chernin’s charming homage to Astor Piazzolla, Re-Collecting ASTORoids.
Among dangers composers face is completing a work that turns out to be more personal than communicative. On Friday night, Rouse’s Odna Zhizn (A Life) painted a portrait of “the love of my life,” who, evidently, endured numerous personal trials. Rouse introduced it by remarking on its “code,” which wouldn’t be understood anyway. Oops! That comment charged the audience with an expectation, if not a distraction. The piece proved to be a thorny ride—not unusual for this talented composer—but overwrought and expressively arcane. James MacMillan’s Piano Concerto No. 3 Mysteries of Light sparkled with the Scotsman’s distinctive orchestrations and craftsmanship, though the piano part, realized by Thibaudet, tended more toward the decorative than the substantial. It nicely recalled some of Olivier Messiaen’s enchanting bird songs. The Friday program also included an “airborne postcard” by Mason Bates called Desert Transport and opened with a tasty and energetic morsel by Margaret Brouwer titled Pulse.
Dashed off to celebrate Alsop’s 20th season at Cabrillo were short orchestral fireworks by Philip Glass (Black and White Scherzo) and Mark Adamo (Prepositions and the Names of Fish) and John Corigliano’s gentle Cabrillo Lullaby, which recalled Copland’s Quiet City.
