Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

Last Night at Ojai: Another Good Year

Los Angeles certainly has good musicians. When you take get a pick-up group, give them a conductor they�ve worked with only once before (if at all), who is, himself, a substitute, present them with challenging music and outstanding soloists, and give them less than a week for practice and rehearsals and you still get a terrfic concert you know you are blessed. We had a lovely concluding concert to this year�s long weekend among the oaks at Ojai. The members of the �Ojai Festival Orchestra� came from studio work as well as positions with other groups. I could count three members of the Phil plus two regular supplementary players, and recognized a few other faces; the Phil provided the concertmaster. The conductor was a substitute for the ailing Oliver Knussen, leading a program he selected; fortunately, Brad Lubman was willing and available and flew in from upstate New York. He had done well with the Phil in a Green Umbrella concert last year, doing a good job with some Henry Brant music, and he shaped the musicians into a cohesive unit.

Peter Serkin appeared for two works, the Stravinsky Movements for Piano and Orchestra (1959) and Toccata: Solo Transformed (2000) by Lukas Foss and dedicated to Serkin. One of the things you have to like about Ojai is that even when presented with prickly music like the Stravinsky (no warm and cuddly stretches in that piece), the audience will still bring the conductor and soloist back on stage for return bows and to receive congratulations. Lukas Foss had been music director at Ojai for three years, back in the days when he was still thought of as being the next great talent. (Sondheim should write a version of I�m Still Here for Foss.) Toccata is an interesting work, evolving from a twelve-tone sequence to tonal music that sounds like Philip Glass to what almost sounds like a John Adams engine near the close. The piano part seems a return to the early music with which Serkin opened his Saturday concert, linear.

William Preucil, concertmaster for the Cleveland Orchestra, performed Oliver Knussen�s Violin Concerto (2002) to great audience appreciation to close the first half of the concert. Knussen conducted the Cleveland in February and put this work, performed by Preucil, on the program. This may be Knussen�s best orchestral work. It�s very engaging, very direct; the solo part is frequently blended to be part of the ensemble, rising again with a new melodic statement.

The concert began with the premiere of Testament by Jonathan Cole, dedicated to the memory of Sue Knussen. Oliver Knussen has been a frequent sponsor of the work by the 35-year-old Cole. This was a warm, sensitive tone picture. The concert ended, after the Foss, with Lubman leading the orchestra in the complete Mother Goose by Ravel. (The principal flute was from the Phil, and she was very valuable.)

The Sunday morning concert gave us chestnuts among the oaks. It was a delightful concert by two friends and former colleagues, the concertmaster of the Cleveland, William Preucil, and the concertmaster of the Phil, Martin Chalifour, who had been associate concertmaster under Preucil in Cleveland and assistant under Preucil in Atlanta. Preucil opened the concert with the Richard Strauss Sonata for Violin and Piano, followed by Chalifour in the Ravel Sonata in G, whose second movement, �Blues�, is Ravel�s best approximation of jazz. Joanne Pearce Martin, the Phil�s keyboard player, was the piano partner in both sonatas and showed herself as an excellent accompanist. After intermission, Preucil and Chalifour played nine of Bartok�s Forty-four Duos, his transcriptions of folk music for two violins. This was a delight. The two violinists had great fun tossing the melody from one to the other. We wanted more. The concert program ended with the Suite for Two Violins and Piano by Morris Moszkowski (1903), and I�ll bet this was the first-ever performance of a Moszkowski work at an Ojai concert. It was a work to enjoy, a nice dessert for a Sunday brunch. What to do for an encore? There�s nothing suitable for two violins plus piano. So they picked a Fritz Kreisler bon-bon, one with quite a bit of Viennese whipped cream, and turned the violin line into a duet, including a bit of clowning over which of the two violinists would get which line before they ended in good harmony.

Next year�s Ojai Festival, the 60th, will bring Robert Spano and the Atlanta, with Dawn Upshaw and a performance of Golijov�s Ainadamar. Save the second weekend in June.

posted by Jerry Zinser 6/13/2005