Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

Last Night in LA--The Green Umbrella

The Los Angeles Philharmonic�s New Music Group has been one of the great successes of Walt Disney Concert Hall. Because the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, with its 3,000-plus seats, was too large and cavernous for chamber-sized instrumentation and the number of potential customers, the Green Umbrella series, as it is called, has played for many years to a faithful, but small, set of listeners in one of two small downtown auditoriums, most recently in Zipper Auditorium of the Colburn School, just a block down the street from the Music Center. The 200 or so brave souls who regularly attended the concerts got to know each other pretty well.

The Green Umbrella series moved to WDCH when it opened last year and tickets were assigned a bargain price. While the regular Phil concerts were (and are) essentially sold out, getting tickets to a Green Umbrella concert was an inexpensive way to get a good seat to a concert. Attendance at Green Umbrella zoomed from the hardy 200 or so to 1,800 or so (by my eye), and I�m sure everyone was pleased. I certainly expected attendance to fall off in this second year. But it hasn�t. People continue to come to the new music concerts. There appeared to be at least 2,000 listeners in attendance at last night�s concert. In fact, there was a larger audience at last night�s new music concert than at last week�s chamber music concert (with music of Brahms and Faur�).

The premise of last night�s concert was to group the last three sonatas of Debussy (one of which, in 1917, was the last work he completed) with three works by contemporary composers. A good idea. As things evolved, one of the contemporary works was set aside, perhaps because of a decision to keep the concert length closer to the magic 2-hour rule. I wish that the decision had been to drop one of the Debussy works instead, since two sonatas were sufficient to give the points for comparison, but in any event the resulting concert was cohesive and quite enjoyable.

The Debussy sonata for flute, viola and harp (1916) was followed by a suite by Kaija Saariaho, �Je sens un deuxi�me coeur� (2004) for viola, cello and piano. The suite evolved from music she is writing for a new opera called "Adriana Mater" whichto be performed at the Bastille Opera in 2006. The title of the suite is from the libretto in which the pregnant woman feels the heart of the unborn child. Each of the five movements of the suite bears a title from the libretto, but Saariaho commented, in Paul Griffiths� excellent program notes, that the musical ideas evolved from those in the opera as the suite took shape. Of particular interest was that two of the movements involve feelings of hostility and anger, derived from physical violence--feelings not normally associated with Saariaho�s music.

After intermission the Debussy sonata for violin and piano (1917) was followed by Steven Stucky�s �Sonate en forme de preludes� (2004) for oboe, horn, and harpsichord. The work reflected many elements of a Debussy vocabulary and style. (I also thought of Poulenc while hearing it.)

The concert concluded with Debussy�s sonata for cello and piano (1917). Debussy�s vocabulary and style have become so much a part of our listening that it�s hard to believe there was a time when Debussy was "modern," when his intervals were perceived as odd and strange, when his harmonies sounded wrong, when his music seemed to be shapeless and sprawling. Having heard last week�s chamber concert of Brahms and Faur� I was struck by how much more comfortable Debussy and these last sonatas seemed to be with music of today rather than with music of a mere 40 years earlier.

The concert had the advantage of a couple of terrific guest musicians. Emanuel Ax played the piano for the Saariaho and the violin sonata and the harpsichord for the Stucky. Anssi Karttunen, the soloist in Sunday�s almost-concerto by Salonen, played the cello in the Saariaho.

posted by Jerry Zinser 2/15/2005