A basic problem with the David Del Tredici - Michael Daughtery school
of Wrong-Way Crossover (popsy classical, not Beethoven for cosmetics
commercials) is how these works buckle under the weight of a full (and
often super-sized) orchestra.  At today's San Francisco Symphony Chamber
Music Series it became painlessly obvious that if you add major talent
to a small ensemble, the results can be terrific.

A large Sunday matinee audience in Davies Hall, over half of the 2,800
seats occupied, came close to going into shock at the beginning of
Aaron Jay Kernis' "100 Greatest Dance Hits," but slowly warmed to this
imaginative, funny, well-crafted work, and by the next event, the world
premiere of Mark Inouye's "Find the Cheese," the house was rocking.

[Bowing to tradition and audience age-and-preference, the innovative
middle section was bracketed by dedicated, flawless performances of
Giovanni Bottesini's Grand Duo Concertante, from the 1840s, with Florin
Parvulescu (violin), Stephen Tramontozzi (bass), Marc Shapiro (piano),
and Dvorak's 1872 Piano Quintet in A Major, with Diane Nicholeris and
Zoya Leybin (violins), Adam Smyla (viola), Peter Wyrick (cello), Janice
Weber (piano).]

Kernis' 1993 work is written for string quartet and guitar.  It opens
with "Introduction to the Dance Party," played entirely by plucking and
hitting the instruments, but before you give up on the "concept," you
should hear the rich rhythmic varieties violinists Sarn Oliver and Chunming
Mo Kobialka, violist Christina King, cellist David Goldblatt and guitarist
David Tanenbaum got out of this movement.  Still, the Introduction is just
that - and the way to get the audience to a different mode of listening.
In a bit of an overkill, the concluding movement, "Dance Party on the Disco
Motorboat," is another attempt at "shocking," a tribute to "Soul Train,"
with bongos, sandpaper blocks, triangle and a few shouts from the
musicians.  It's cute and unnecessary, a demonstration that pop-classical
can be too much even on a small scale.

Ah, but the two middle movements of the Kernis!  They are simply terrific,
regardless of genre - they provide music.  "Salsa Pasada" is melodic,
both beautiful and challenging, as its pre-Castro Cuban sound segues into
a portion of true "classical music" (whatever that may be).  "MOR Easy
Listening Slow Dance Ballad," the third movement, is even better: a
slow-mo fugue wanders off into deliberate, effective dissonance, which then
transforms into a warm, delightful section of real substance, a memorable
segment that creates a demand for repeated hearings.  The orchestra
musicians, usually at their best in these chamber-music solo outings,
were in rare form, especially Tanenbaum.

Inouye's work was a precedent-setting performance at the chamber-music
series: not a cross-over, not "influenced," just jazz, plain and simple.
The trumpet player, who is equally at home with an orchestra or in a band,
performed the premiere of "Find the Cheese," backed up by a similarly
multi-talented group: Raymond Froehlich (percussion), Larry Epstein (bass)
and Mark Levine (piano).  The personable young musician - who joined the
Symphony two years ago, at age 28 - got away with an overlong introduction
to the piece, taking a roundabout, leisurely path to explaining the title:
when he played with an opera company in a small Italian town, he couldn't
find his way home in the old section of town, felt like a lab rat in the
maze, with his apartment as the sought-after "cheese." The piece reflects
both the confusion and exhilaration of being lost, it finds its way "home"
in a most satisfactory manner.  As all through the afternoon, performances
were exemplary, but the generous solos Inouye wrote for himself won the day
for the impressive, multi-talented trumpet player.

Janos Gereben/SF, CA
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