Reviews

If an often-played masterpiece is a warhorse, what is its opposite? I had just written about the benefits of unusual programming in the pastures of Arizona when, lo and behold, not one but three peacehorses galloped into the San Francisco Symphony’s Davies Hall, two of them bridled by überpianist Emanuel Ax, and a third paraded magnificently by guest conductor Peter Oundjian.

Choral concerts organized around a single figure can make for a bland evening if not programmed with restraint and consummate care. But the Artists’ Vocal Ensemble (AVE) made Saint Francis of Assisi the focus of a thoughtful, artfully structured, and surprisingly varied concert in two performances over the weekend.

There was half an hour to go before the concert, but if you happened to be standing outside St. Mark's Lutheran Church in San Francisco at 3:30 on Saturday you could hear them. Just a few highly trained people, a few feet apart, yet formidably strong and utterly fearless — powering through their chosen medium at alarming speed and with frightening precision ...

One of the great experiences in music listening comes when you attend an "interesting" program by a musician you hadn't known at all, only to find yourself blown away by his flawless musicianship. That was the case Sunday afternoon at Old First Church, as visiting pianist Emanuele Arciuli presented a textbook example of just how well the instrument can be made to sound.

Medieval secular music has a way of inspiring a startling array of interpretive approaches. There are those ensembles that gussy up their performances with (literally) all manner of whistles and bells, mystical in sound but dubious in authenticity. At the other end are the extreme purists, demanding authenticity to a fault and using only the barest surviving historical evidence to generate "faithful" but lifeless performances.

For those seeking respite from overplayed classics (See Jeff Dunn's feature), there are a handful of daring ensembles in San Francisco that specialize in new and unusual pieces. While the mainstream presenters lure audiences with Mozart or Beethoven, the marketed draw for sfSoundSeries' Sunday night concert at the ODC Commons was Gino Robair’s Percussion Potluck.