October 5, 2006 Issue                                       

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©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Renaissance band comes to life at Hill church
by MICHAEL CARUSO

Piffaro, a local treasure with an international reputation, brought their distinct Renaissance-era sounds to the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill last Friday night.

Piffaro, the Renaissance Wind Band, opened its 2006-07 season with a performance of “Iberica Resplendens: Music from the Great Cathedral Collections of Spain & Portugal” Friday night in the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill. It was the first of four programs the internationally acclaimed period instruments ensemble will be presenting, each one several times, in Greater Philadelphia this season. All four will be played in Chestnut Hill Presbyterian. It’s a mark of distinction that testifies to the church’s stature as one of the region’s finest concert venues.

Piffaro’s contingent of players for the program of Spanish and Portuguese cathedral music was comprised of Rotem Gilbert, Grant Herreid, Greg Ingles, Joan Kimball, Christa Patton, Robert Wiemken and Tom Zajac, and they performed on bagpipes, guitar, recorders, vihuela, harp, sackbuts, shawms, dulcian, pipe & tabor and percussion.

Of the composers whose music was offered Friday evening, I was most interested in that of Francisco Guerrero. Born in 1528, he died in 1599, making him a predecessor to his more famous compatriot, Tomas Luis de Victoria, whose life spanned 1548 to 1611. Guerrero’s Missa “Sancta et immaculata” and Missa:“De la Batalla Escoutez” are among my favorite settings of the Ordinary of the Latin Mass, surpassed only by those of Victoria, himself, and the peerless Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.

The dates are important. Both began their careers as musicians before Spain’s King Phillip II launched his mighty but doomed Armada against England’s Queen Elizabeth I. The economic reasoning behind his rash act were Spain’s allegations of English piracy and interference with Spain’s traffic in New World gold and silver. But behind the economics and politics stood Phillip’s view of himself as the principal defender of Roman Catholicism against the threat from what was fast becoming Europe’s most daringly successful Protestant state. If the mid-16th century Catholic Counter Reformation wasn’t able to win back the Lutherans, Calvinists and Anglicans, then Spanish arms would. It was an arrogance that cost Phillip and Spain dearly. By the time Victoria died early in the 17th century, Spain’s decline was visible and irreversible. She would never again be the most powerful nation in Europe, supplanted first by Louis XIV’s France and then by Great Britain and an Empire that covered one-quarter of the globe for more than two centuries.

One of the marvels of a Piffaro concert is how quickly the ear accommodates itself to the tart timbres of the older wind instruments and how soon one begins listening to the technical precision and interpretive expressivity of the playing. I’ve heard Piffaro in numerous venues throughout the area, and I’m convinced that the band sounds its best at Chestnut Hill Presbyterian. The space offers clarity and resonance in perfect measure. So don’t miss “A Mexican Christmas” Saturday, December 16, at 8 p.m. in the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill. Call 215-235-8469 or visit www.piffaro.com

ORCHESTRA SEASON

The Philadelphia Orchestra opened its 2006-07 season of subscription concerts with a pair of programs, both of which featured renditions of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 in D minor. Performed in the Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall, each also sported as its soloist a graduate of Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music. Last weekend, the virtuoso was pianist Lang Lang, who was heard in Frederic Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor; this recent weekend’s soloist was violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, who played Johann Sebastian Bach’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in E major and gave the local premiere of Clarice Assad’s Violin Concerto.

As an admirer of Shostakovich’s music, in general, and his Symphony No. 5 in particular, I was delighted by the oddity of scheduling that enabled me to hear the work played two Saturday evenings in a row. Not only did I have the chance to hear what I consider the greatest symphony composed in the 20th century twice, but I also had the opportunity to hear if and how the interpretation and performance of it would change from one week to the next.

Conductor Chistoph Eschenbach’s interpretation varied only a little between September 23 and September 30. If he occasionally overdid the extension of melodic lines to make an emotional or spiritual point, he did so only rarely—and often to telling effect. The playing, however, was more discernibly different. It was more cohesive the second time around, suggesting that more rehearsal time may be needed for such a daunting work.

And yet, even on September 30, the Philadelphia Orchestra just didn’t sound like itself—at least, not the way it used to sound. There was a lack of virtuosic sheen, especially from the string section, that was once the calling card of this ensemble but that resurfaces only when certain guest conductors are on the podium.

Lang Lang’s performance of Chopin’s Piano Concerto in E minor was the finest effort I’ve yet heard from him. Although he has not yet dispensed with the swaying and swooning that either delights or disturbs so many audience members, he has pared down the eccentricities of interpretation that have dismayed many who accept musical individuality but not interpretive perversity.

Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg’s playing of Bach’s Violin Concerto in E major was disappointing. She imposed on the line so heavy and wide a vibrato that pitch was seriously compromised, to say nothing of being stylistically inappropriate, and her phrasing bulldozed over Bach’s organic articulations. She may very well have played Assad’s Violin Concerto extremely well, but it’s a piece that falls well below the level of third rate movie music. It’s little more than a string of charming tunes nicely harmonized but rarely developed.