By Eileen Wingard in La Jolla, California
The second night of Summerfest’s 40th anniversary season featured music from Vienna. It opened at the Conrad’s Baker-Baum Concert Hall with a lilting rendition of Johann Strauss II’s famous Emperor Waltz, arranged for string quartet, piano, flute and clarinet by Arnold Schoenberg.
It seemed strange to associate Schoenberg, known for his atonal music, with the lighthearted, accessible melodies of Strauss’ waltzes, but apparently, Schoenberg loved Strauss’ music.
Summerfest Director, Israeli-born pianist, Inon Barnatan, juxtaposed this as the opener of the program, Vienna 1900, with Schoenberg’s own Verklarte Nacht, which concluded the program. Both, the Strauss arrangement and his tone poem were written when Schoenberg was 25 years old.
The six performers of the Emperor Waltz exemplified the diversity of the Summerfest participants. First violinist, Randall Goosby, and cellist. Sterling Elliot, are winners of the Sphinx Competition, which fosters African-American musicians in classical music; American-born second violinist, Elli Choi, of South Korean descent; Belgian-born violist, Dimitri Murrath; American-born flutest, Rose Lombardo; South Korean-born clarinetist, Yoonah Kim; and Israeli-born pianist Inon Barnatan comprised the group.
They performed the five waltzes of this work idiomatically, with beautiful ensemble. Listening, one could imagine twirling couples waltzing in turn of century Vienna.
Next, followed a work by Richard Strauss, who was born and died in Germany, not Vienna. However, he served for a period as the director of the Vienna Opera and he founded the Salzburg Festival. Although he shared his last name with the great waltz king, he was no relation. R. Strauss wrote his Violin Sonata in E-flat Major when he was only 24 years old.
The three-movement work resembles his tone poems, especially in their outer movements, which brim with exciting virtuosity. The middle movement opens like a love dialogue, reminiscent of Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words. The middle more turbulent section quotes Schubert’s song, Erlkonig and in the coda, he quotes Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata. It was expressively played by the American violinist, Stefan Jackiw, who scaled the challenging passagework with confidence.
Richard Strauss, along with Richard Wagner, were not played in Israel after the Holocaust. Wagner’s antisemitic writings and his Nazi ideology were good reasons for that composer’s music not to be played in the Jewish homeland.
Strauss was a more questionable figure. Although he served under the Nazis as head of the Reichsmusikkammer and as principal conductor of the Bayreuth Festival, he also insisted on using the Jewish writer, Stefan Zweig’s libretto for his opera, Die Schweigsame Frau, and he helped his Jewish daughter-in-law to survive WWII under house arrest, although he was unable to save her family. He claimed to be apolitical and was cleared by a denazification tribunal in Munich after WWII.
Nevertheless, the unofficial ban on playing the music of Strauss was in effect in Israel when the great violin virtuoso, Jascha Heifetz concertized there in 1953, and included the Strauss Sonata, a great vehicle for his artistry.
After the performance at Edison Hall in Jerusalem, he was assaulted with an iron bar in the King David Hotel that injured his right wrist. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion apologized profusely, and Heifetz omitted the sonata when he performed his recital the next night in Rehovoth.
However, the great violinist did not return to Israel again until 17 years later, when he and cellist Gregor Piatigorsky performed jointly with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and gave separate recitals. The assailant was never apprehended.
The final work on the Summerfest program, Schoenberg’s Verklarte Nacht, was played in its original string sextet version, and featured six stars of Summerfest, Blake Pouliot, Karen Gomyo, violins; Masumi Rostad, Dimitri Murrath, violas; and Alisa Weilerstein, Sterling Elliot, cellos. This romantic work, which predates Schoenberg’s atonal period, remains his most frequently played composition. It was inspired by a poem by Richard Dehmal which describes a couple walking in a dark forest, her anxiety about her pregnancy by another man, her confession, his forgiveness and how love conquers and transfigures all.
Arnold Schoenberg, the Viennese-Jewish composer, is one of the most pivotal musical figures of the Twentieth century, with his introduction of the 12-tone row, atonality.
He converted to Christianity and then returned to Judaism after he left Nazi Germany in 1933. He spent his last years in Los Angeles, composing and teaching at USC and at UCLA. The Music Hall at UCLA is named after him.
I entered my freshman year at UCLA a few months after Schoenberg’s death and my harmony and theory teacher, Natalie Limonick, a disciple of Schoenberg’s, used his excellent harmony text and would often speak about him. It was a special treat to hear this wonderful rendition of his Verklarte Nacht.
Once again, this Summerfest concert illustrated the engaging and creative programming and the outstanding musicians assembled by Director Inon Barnatan.
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Eileen Wingard, a retired violinist with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts.
Elli Choi, of Korean descent, was born in San Diego and attended La Jolla Country Day School from 2007 to 2010.