By Lyn Bronson
Three years ago pianist Sara Davis Buechner performed the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto with the Santa Cruz Symphony. It was a brilliant and sensitive performance that breathed new life into this familiar warhorse. Well, yesterday afternoon she was back in the area to blow us away with an exciting and fresh performance of Gershwin’s Concerto in F with the Monterey Symphony and conductor Max Bragado-Darmen. In sixty years of attending concerts I had only previously heard recorded performances of this concerto, so to hear it on this occasion live was a great experience. Although on recordings engineers often close mike the piano so that it has a greater presence in the ensemble, in live performances with a large orchestra, there are times when the soloist can be almost overwhelmed by the orchestra. And so it was at times during this performance that the orchestra was so loud Ms. Buechner was difficult to hear.
But, most of the time we could hear her and what we heard was delicious solid gold all the way! In the first movement, all the big melodies, some of them top drawer Gershwin, just rolled out of her fingers and swept over us like magic. Ms. Buechner’s solid control was fabulous in the ingenious jazzy passages and cross rhythms. In the jazzy slow movement, Ms Buechner exhibited a lovely refinement and gracious style that brought out the best in the score without ever overplaying or exploiting the music for trashy effects.
The brief toccata-like last movement was a knockout. All the dazzling repeated notes interspersed with chords make this an infectious, powerful movement, and Ms Buechner delivered a great performance. As she approached the end of the concerto, I found it difficult to suppress the images in my memory of Oscar Levant playing this movement in the film, “An American in Paris.” In the film, Levant was not only shown playing the solo part, but also conducting, playing principal instruments and percussion, and by the end of the scene, through Hollywood special effects as the camera panned away, his face was superimposed on every member of the orchestra. Without all the distractions of Hollywood gimmicks, Ms. Buechner allowed us to concentrate on the music itself, and she made a powerful statement about the music in so doing.
After intermission, Ms. Buechner returned to the stage to play JoaquÃn Turina’s Rapsodia sinfonica for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 66. This was a nine-minute work for piano and string orchestra. Â Not surprisingly, the reduced orchestral texture permitted us to hear every charming nuance, every delicious passage, and every harmonic twist and turn with perfect clarity. For both performances, Ms. Buechner received prolonged standing ovations, which she acknowledged most gracefully. It was certainly clear from this enthusiastic reception that Ms. Buechner would be most welcome here in a future reengagement.
There were two other works on the program, both of them rather rarely heard, and thus most fresh to our ears. The opening work, Elgar’s Cockaigne Overture, “In London Town,” was composed in 1901, a turbulent time in British history since it marked the death of Queen Victoria and the ending of the Second Boer War. You would search in vain for any hint of these difficult times in Elgar’s score. Nor does his score suggest the presence of gas lights, clopping of hooves on cobbled streets, Hansom cabs, or the great detective residing at 221-B Baker Street. But there is in this score a suggestion that life could be most pleasant and rewarding in Edwardian times.
The concert ended with a performance of the Estancia Ballet Suite by Alberto Ginastera. With the exception of the second section of the Suite, “The Wheat Dance,” which was pleasingly lyrical, the other three sections were typical Ginastera - - strongly rhythmic, percussive with occasional minimalistic repetition over and over that can become irritating. Some of the rhythmic devices were pure Ginastera, but sometimes there was a suggestion of Prokofiev and Stravinsky, but with hot sauce, of course.
At the end of the concert many members of the Monterey Symphony were given special recognition by Maestro Max, and this they richly deserved, for we heard some great solos by principals, and especially the percussion section in the Ginastera.
Continuing its use of catchy titles for each concert, this one was headlined by the Monterey Symphony as “Spiritual Uplift.” Well, I like to think that every concert could use that moniker!
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