Berkeley Symphony: Lancaster, Adams, Haydn

Berkeley Symphony

Helen Kim plays Samuel Adams's Chamber Concerto; Edwin Outwater conducts

Photo: Louis Bryant III

Berkeley Symphony has a more-exciting-than-usual season lined up, because they are looking for a new music director, following Joseph Young's to-me-surprising departure at the end of the 2024-25 season. I missed the first concert, which I am now kicking myself for. I expect to get to the rest, if I am in town, because I'm trying to prioritize the regional orchestras, which, individually and in toto, have a higher percentage of programs that interest me than San Francisco Symphony does. I wish that weren't true, because the programming was so interesting under Esa-Pekka Salonen; it is reasonable to hope that things pick up now that the orchestra has a new artistic administrator.

ANYWAY. I made it to this past Sunday's Berkeley Symphony concert, which was held at First Congregational Church, oops, First Church, known to those who perform there as First Congo. It's a slightly difficult venue for larger ensembles, because it is very, very resonant. That makes it a joy for choruses, because we can really hear ourselves, but can muddy the music with an orchestra. This is kinda the opposite of Zellerbach Hall, where Berkeley Symphony used to perform; it is extremely dry because it's made of concrete. It's equipped with a Meyer Constellation system but that doesn't fix all of the sonic issues.

Edwin Outwater conducted Sunday's concert. He has major conducting responsibilities at the SF Conservatory of Music and is a pretty regular guest at SFS. I was certain the first half of the program (Yaz Lancaster's Gender Envy and Samuel Adams's Chamber Concerto) would be fine and dandy because I've heard him in new music before.

And indeed they were! Gender Envy was a sparkly curtain-raiser, moved there from its original place at the top of the second half of the concert. It ran through a surprising number of styles in its eight minutes, sounding folkish at times and kinda techno at others. It used some alternative playing techniques; I noted a few string players using their instruments for percussion, for example. Part way through, there was a canonical section, with the first violins, second violins, flute, and other instruments chiming in.

Samuel Adams's Chamber Concerto, for violin and orchestra in five movements, was on a completely different scale.  The program said it was 31 minutes long; while I didn't time it, I'm certain that it was longer than than, by up to ten minutes.

I have no complaints about the playing, on the part of violin soloist Helen Kim or the orchestra. (If Kim's name seems familiar, she was associate principal second violin in SFS for some years; a year ago, she became the associate concertmaster of the Seattle Symphony.) Kim is a most excellent violinist, very committed to new music. She plays with a penetrating tone that cut nicely through or rode on top of the orchestra, as required. 

Maybe it was the construction of the piece that made me think it was that much longer than the stated time. Adams has an exceptionally inventive voice, with a great ear for interesting sonorities; the orchestration of the Chamber Concerto is really beautiful. He sets up the work so that the orchestra and soloists are cooperative, rather than using the standard romantic model of the soloists and orchestra at loggerheads with each other.

But there are some real structural issues with the piece. More than once, I found myself writing "this movement is just too long." The composer's sonic fecundity gets away from him, and he just can't stop inventing new things. On top of that, whether as a performance choice by Outwater or because of how it's notated, the movements somewhat blended into each other. I can't swear that my notes are accurate as to what's in what movement. I do know that there was a pause that I thought was a moment between movements, but then I realized that most likely what followed was a continuation, not a new movement. That....was a little disconcerting. 

Still, there were certainly many extraordinarily beautiful moments in the Chamber Concerto. It's quite dramatic, even cinematic, sometimes oceanic. There is at least one theme from the first movement, Prelude: One by One, that recurs in the last, Postlude: All Together Now. I'm sure that there's more connection between those two movements, but...there's so much interesting detail that it was hard to grasp the overall structure. 

No, I hadn't looked at the score beforehand, though...I spent a couple of hours before the concert in the UC Music Library and maybe I should have. I also didn't read the program notes, which had more than a few clues about what's going on the Chamber Concerto, which included quotations from a big work by another composer, some guy named John Adams, who might be a relation. Anyway, I'd love to hear this again sometime.

Then there was the second half of the concert, Haydn's Symphony No. 100 in G Major, nicknamed "Military" for its orchestration. I had never heard Outwater conduct anything composed earlier than Gershwin, so I was quite curious what his Haydn would be like.

Reader, it was terrific. His tempos were just right; there was plenty of wit; the orchestra played crisply and sounded like they were having fun. I'm always in favor of more Haydn and this was a pleasure to hear.

Elsewhere:

• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle. I heard that nod to the Berg violin concerto too.