Seattle Opera’s "Tosca" is a Classic

Lianna Haroutounian as Tosca and Yonghoon Lee as Cavaradossi in Seattle Opera's production
of Puccini's Tosca.

REVIEW

Tosca, by Giacomo Puccini, McCaw Hall, Seattle

ERICA MINER

In our technology-dominated times, a “classic” production of a perennial operatic favorite is always welcome. Seattle Opera has granted every traditional opera fan’s wish in its latest take on Giacomo Puccini’s archetypal masterwork, Tosca. Brought back to the Seattle stage after a successful 2015 run, this recreation of the sumptuous scenery and stylish period costumes, coupled with a first-rate cast, added up to an evening to delight the eyes and ears of the audience.

Giacomo Puccini.

Written at the height of Puccini’s compositional powers, the opera has been performed by the world’s leading singers since it premiered in Rome in 1900. Assembling a cast that can fill the shoes of these virtuosi is not easy, but all the artists in the May 11 SO performance completed their tasks admirably.

The title role of the fiery stage diva Tosca is so iconic as to be daunting for anyone following in some of the great singers’ footsteps. Up to the task was Armenian soprano Lianna Haroutounian, who used her opulent voice to milk every dramatic moment to the maximum. She made the most of her opportunity to shine in the illustrious aria Vissi d’Arte, with well-connected phrasing and a high B-flat that was thrilling.

Dramatically, Haroutounian gave a well-balanced and convincing rendering of the diva’s diverse emotional journey as the woman who transforms from idealistic and smitten to desperate enough to commit murder to save her lover’s life.

Lianna Haroutounian.

Korean tenor Yonghoon Lee, who made a lasting impression in the company’s 2023 concert presentation of Samson and Delilah, delivered a compelling rendering of Tosca’s paramour, Cavaradossi. His lung power was impressive, and his voice showed immense power, especially in the upper range, though at times the amount of volume was overdone. He and Haroutounian blended perfectly in their scenes together, the highlight of which was their Act 1 love duet, one of the most dizzyingly sexual in recent memory.

In his SO debut, world-renowned Serbian baritone Željko Lučić upheld his outstanding reputation in his portrayal of the malicious Scarpia. Having gained his reputation by singing such roles as Scarpia and Macbeth at the Metropolitan Opera, his appearance here was much anticipated. He proved more than worthy of the highest expectations. From the moment he appeared onstage, he projected a malevolence that grabbed the listener in a take-no-prisoners attitude and his commanding voice showed limitless power over his world. It’s hard to imagine anyone scarier or creepier than this villain. His portrayal was so egregiously evil that when he gasped his final breath, the audience applauded raucously in unison.

Željko Lučić.

It is always a pleasure to watch and listen to bass Adam Lau, now a SO favorite through his many roles performed here in the past several seasons. He gave his all as beleaguered escapee Angelotti, displaying breathless despair with both his admirable vocality and skilled dramatic sense.

In the comprimario roles, other familiar SO performers rounded out the cast with consistently commendable singing: Barry Johnson as the Sacristan and John Marzano as Spoletta, with Ilya Silchukou debuting as Sciarrone and Micah Parker in his main stage debut as the Jailer. Former Magic Flute genie Grace Elaine Franck-Smith sang the Shepherd Boy angelically with lovely tones.

After notable debuts at several of the world’s greatest houses, conductor Leonardo Sini also appeared on the SO podium for the first time. The young Italian-born maestro proved himself capable of a remarkable variety of gestures appropriate for the gamut of emotions that Puccini portrayed in the work: whether subtle and understated or bold and forthright, his zeal for his compatriot’s score was evident, both to the orchestra and to the audience. The sound he drew from the orchestra had a beautiful sheen and was a pleasure to listen to. The French horns were absolute perfection in the Act 3 introduction.

Leonardo Sini.

Sini’s performance was in keeping with the Italian themes brought to life in the 1950s-designed sets from Ercole Sormani’s Milanese scenery shop. First opened in 1838, the studio was at the forefront of representational scenic painting in the era of Verdi and Puccini.

The Tosca sets, consisting of a series of painted backdrops which the company has owned since the 1960s, give a vivid, utterly realistic trompe l’oeil perspective on the Eternal City, both exterior and interior: an ornate cathedral; a menacingly lavish Palazzo Farnese apartment reeking of power; a starlit sky and dawn breaking behind a prison. It was refreshing to see such a true-to-life rendering; the ideal atmosphere for a splendid period story set to timeless music.

Connie Yun’s exquisite lighting meshed perfectly with the sets. Sunrise in front of the Castel Sant’Angelo had a particularly vibrant glow, and the cathedral looked glorious. With his costumes, Andrew Marlay brought back his 2015 creations, depicting early 19th century Roman style with lush, colorful fabrics and great attention to detail: classic yet fresh-looking, a welcome look back to the times of bonnets and carriages.

Members of the Chorus.

Chorus Master Michaella Calzaretta and Youth Chorus Master Julia Meyering joined forces to produce a superb, well-rounded sound and sparkling tones to add depth to the main cast’s work.

Bringing all of the above to the stage was director Brenna Corner, who exploited the extreme violence of the story.

Adam Lau and Yonghoon Lee.

The dramatic gestures and facial expressions of all of the performers heightened the spectacle and kept the audience riveted. There were any number of appealing details, particularly pertaining to Scarpia. When he made his first entrance and brutally collared the young acolyte, he didn’t even have to sing a note to show his monstrous character. His intense final gasps were as horrible as his evil personality. The corpses being dragged offstage in the prison scene were less effective, however.

Gustav Mahler might have criticized Puccini’s work as “a masterful piece of trash,” but 100-plus years later, Tosca reigns supreme among operatic oeuvres. Ending the season with a memorable production of one of opera’s most tour de force masterpieces is sure to motivate audiences to return for Seattle Opera’s next season. Tosca runs through May 17. Tickets and information for remaining performances can be found at https://www.seattleopera.org/tosca.

The Act 1 Finale in the Cathedral.

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McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St, Seattle, WA 98109, Sunday, 11 May, 2025, 7.30 p.m.

Images: The performance: Sunny Martini (except for Act 1 Finale: Elise Baktun); Puccini: Wikimedia Commons. 

USC Chamber Virtuosi Shine at April’s “Second Sunday”

The strings of the USC Chamber Virtuosi play Olli Mustonen’s Nonetto II:
l-r: Lina Bahn, Anna Renton, Veronika Manchur, Abigail Park (violins), Nicolas Valencia,
Cecile McNeill (violas), Logan Nelson (double bass), Joseph Kim and Seth Parker Woods (cellos).

REVIEW

USC Thornton Chamber Virtuosi, Second Sundays at Two, Rolling Hills United Methodist Church

BARBARA GLAZER, Guest Reviewer

The “Second Sundays at Two” concert series has since its inception in January 2009 been a treasured feature of Southern California’s chamber music scene, not least because of the near-perfect acoustics and excellent sightlines of Rolling Hills United Methodist Church. Due to Covid-19, the concerts have been streamed over the internet since March 2020 and—now presented by the nonprofit Classical Crossroads, Inc.—they continue to be livestreamed and subsequently made available on Vimeo for a limited period.

As well as drawing on the exceptionally rich resources of local world-class professional musicians (and sometimes from further afield), the series also highlights the cream of local student musicians, and in this concert some from USC Thornton performed alongside distinguished faculty members Lina Bahn (violin) and Seth Parker Woods (cello) as the USC Thornton Chamber Virtuosi.

Barbara Glazer, local Rancho Palos Verdes resident but global concert attendee and lifelong classical music student, writes: “This group of USC School of Music Rising Stars is aptly named 'Virtuosi,' their concert being filled with stunning performances of a well-integrated program—music influenced by, or which referenced, a range of ethnic folk themes and dance rhythms.

“The opening piece was the spiritual Deep River, included by the British Black composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor ( 1875-1912) as the 10th of his 24 Negro Melodies, Op. 59 (1905) for piano. Further (and gorgeously) reworked for double bass and piano by USC student Logan Nelson and played by himself and William Chiang, piano (right),  this brilliant arrangement afforded a deeper emotional response to the music. Never before have I heard a double bass sing with such emotional depth—resonating with the gorgeous deep tones of Paul Robeson that many of us remember hearing.

“William Chiang was joined by Seth Parker Woods (left) for the Andante (E-flat major) third movement from Rachmaninoff's Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 19, in a performance that expertly fulfilled the composer's wish that the piano be not merely be an accompaniment, but an equal partner, to the cello: the piano introduces the Romantic themes which are embellished by the cello. I very much liked their tempo. Andante usually means slowly (but at a waking pace), but they added some ‘con moto’ for energy—that important element achieved when the composer overcame his depression and several years of writer's block.

Rachmaninoff, c.1906.

“Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) had achieved early compositional success in the 1890s, but after the severe critical panning of his First Symphony (1895, premiered 1897), he succumbed to a deep depression and underwent therapy. When he finally overcame his lassitude and began composing again, this sonata (1901), one of his few chamber pieces, was one of his recovery successes. Written in the same time-frame as the Second Piano Concerto, both have references to Tchaikovsky's music and require astute attention to phrasing and tempi—exceedingly well done in this performance.

“I thought the Piano Quintet in A Minor by Florence Price (1887-1943)—played by Lina Bahn and Agatha Blevin (violins), Nicolas Valencia (viola), Seth Parker Wood, and William Chiang (below)—was exquisite and masterful. Price, a mixed-race pianist child prodigy, was born in Little Rock, Alabama, to a black father, a dentist, and a white mother, a teacher. She gave her first piano recital at four, and wrote her first, and well-received, composition at 11. She graduated from high school at 14, and was admitted to the prestigious and selective New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where she ‘passed’ as a Mexican in an attempt to avoid the racial animus that prompted her family's move to Chicago in 1927 during the years of heavy southern migration to northern cities.

“She received her teacher's diploma from the Conservatory, and went onto composing and playing the organ for silent films. She composed over 300 works in every genre, and played a prominent role in the Chicago Black Renaissance movement; she won the prestigious Wanamaker Prize in 1932. Her Symphony No. 1 (1932) became, in 1933, the first by a Black American woman to be performed by a major orchestra—the Chicago Symphony; other major ensembles here and abroad followed suit. In 1940 she was the first Black person to be included in the American Society for Composers, Authors, and Publishers.

“As a teenager I first encountered Price’s work when my cousin, a trained opera singer, took me to a performance of her art songs and spirituals; I was enchanted and have studied her work ever since. Happily she is now undergoing a rediscovery, and I'm grateful for the inclusion of the Piano Quintet and its brilliant performance by the Virtuosi players in this concert.

Florence Price.

“The Allegro first movement is the most 'classical' of the four; African-American spirituals infuse the slow second movement, while the third, the rousing Juba African-American dance, was electrifying. There is still some disagreement as to the quintet’s date of composition: one music historian offers an early date of 1928, and if so then the quintet’s third movement Juba precedes the third movement Juba in the First Symphony.

“Both are gorgeously written, substituting a Black plantation dance for those (think minuet and others) used in classical compositions. The 19th century Juba Dance (or Hambone) originated with the enslaved Blacks on Southern plantations. It used clapping, foot stomping, and slapping parts of the body (chest, thighs, etc), with the hard hand bone (hence, hambone) to produce a percussive sound—the body becoming an instrument substituting for the drums forbidden to slaves for fear of inter-plantation communication. 

“The quintet’s concluding fourth movement was a fast-paced exuberant ride. I was totally thrilled with the entire performance, inspired by Dvořák's music and his counseling for Americans to incorporate their folk heritages in their music: here by using African-American thematic material.

“The British composer and violist Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979) wrote the next selection, the Dumka: Duo concertante (1940-41) for violin, viola and piano, which was exquisitely performed by Agatha Blevin, Nicolas Valencia, and William Chiang (right). Clarke was born in England of an abusive American father and a German mother, and in 1913 made British music history by becoming one of six women hired by the professional Queen's Hall Orchestra.

"After 1916, she lived for long periods in America, finally permanently moving here in 1941, where she found success performing and composing, although her output was not as copious, nor her acceptance as renowned, as Price's. The Rebecca Clarke Society, founded in 2000, is dedicated to encouraging the study and performance of her work, and is part of the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, which supports women composers who embrace their various ethnic heritages, as in the American Indianist movement.

Rebecca Clarke, c.1919.

"The etymological root of Dumka is Ukrainian, meaning a thought, or an idea (from duma; plural, dumy); in music it is characterized by abrupt contrasts of slower, pensive, dreamy, more melancholy sections with faster, more joyful, exuberant ones, and was popularized by Dvořák and Tchaikovsky. It is said to be derived from Slavic ballads sung by wandering Cossack bards accompanied by a lute (kobza).

I have paternal, non-Slavic, Ukrainian roots and am familiar with Dumka music, and truly admire both Clarke's composition and the performance given at this concert. Several old Magyar folk motifs, based on the pentatonic scale and similar to central Asian folk traditions, are found throughout the piece, as in Bartók and Martinů who Clarke references; Gypsy stylistic material is borrowed from Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 1 in the opening and closing passages. Both technically and musically this was an enchanting performance.

“The concluding piece, the Nonetto II, for nine strings composed in 2000 by the Finn Olli Mustonen (b. 1967, below right), was a wonderful choice as the music is post-modern incorporating thematic material from the baroque to minimalism—a summation and nod to the musical themes and ideas of the preceding pieces: fugal materials from the baroque period as well as from Shostakovich and Hindemith are referenced beautifully.

“The above-listed Virtuosi string players, augmented by Anna Renton, Veronika Manchur, and Abigal Park on violins, Cecile McNeill on viola, and Joseph Kim on cello, gave the work all the sensitivity, attack, and virtuosity that it required and were implied by the headings to its four brief sections: I. Inquieto, II. Allegro impetuoso, III. Adagio, and IV. Vivacissimo. 

“Altogether this was a marvelous showcase for the talents of these young musicians and a tribute to the exalted standards of their teachers and of USC Thornton (and sadly also a reminder of how arts funding in this country is now under threat from the policies of the current administration). 

"Fortunately you don’t have to take my word for how good this recital was, as you can enjoy the whole thing on Vimeo (click here or on the top image), masterfully recorded by Classical Crossroads’ tech wizard, Jim Eninger. Watching and rewatching, I felt as totally engaged as if I were in the audience, each time finding new and deeper appreciation of a wonderful concert.”

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Rolling Hills United Methodist Reform Church, Sunday, April 13, 2025, 2:00 p.m.

Images: The performance: Classical Crossroads, Inc.; Rachmaninoff, Florence Price: Wikimedia Commons; Rebecca Clarke: composer homepage; Olli Mustonen: KarstenWittMusikManagement.

Looking Up and Ahead at Mount Wilson's 2025 Season

Sunday Afternoon Concerts in the Dome: 

The Upcoming Summer 2025 Season

DAVID J. BROWN

For the eighth season in nine years (2020 was, as we all know, essentially canceled as far as live music and other performing arts were concerned due to Covid), the remarkable acoustics of the Dome that houses the 100-inch Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory will in summer 2025 resound to music performed by world-class players from Southern California and beyond, adding as in recent years jazz to the previous classical-only repertoire.

Indeed, this will be the most ambitious season yet of Sunday Afternoon Concerts in the Dome, reflecting the remarkable success of an enterprise triggered back in 2017 by the request from Mount Wilson Institute Trustee Dan Kohne, now the Observatory’s Chief Operating Officer, to Cécilia Tsan (Principal Cellist of Long Beach Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Master Chorale) to test the Dome’s acoustics (right).

The result left no doubt as to their unique beauty, resonance, and impact, as many thousands have enjoyed hearing from the brief video she posted on Facebook.

The first concert was given on Sunday, July 2017 by Cécilia Tsan and the late Ben Powell (see below) and was reviewed here on LA Opus. So successful was it that a second concert was scheduled and given two months later (also reviewed here)—and the die was cast for full seasons in the year following and subsequently, with Ms. Tsan as Artistic Director, a role that she has fulfilled ever since.

Now for 2025 she has upped the total from the previous years’ one concert per month, from May through to October, to nine in all—on the Sunday afternoons of May 25, June 29, July 20, August 3, 17 and 31, September 21, and October 5 and 19—but in each case the timing and format remain as originally established eight years ago: the same one-hour-plus program performed twice, at 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m., with wine and light refreshments served outside in the time between and included in the ticket price of $60.

THE 2025 SEASON

The season kicks off on May 25 with “Carte Blanche,” a jazz program from Peter Erskine & the Lounge Art Ensemble (Peter Erskine (left), drums, Bob Sheppard, saxophone, Darek Oles, bass). The repertoire will be announced from the stage. Erskine has been voted “Best Jazz Drummer of the Year” 10 times by the readers of Modern Drummer magazine, while Sheppard is a professor of jazz studies at USC and can be heard on the soundtracks of major motion pictures and recordings. Darek Oles, a native of Poland, has performed with many major jazz artists such as Pat Metheny, Bennie Maupin, Peter Erskine, Alan Pasqua, etc.

On June 29, under the title “Cellissimo,” the two cellist friends Cécilia Tsan and Allan Hon will play an eclectic program that includes a world premiere, Ready to Rumble (2024) by the Austrian-born, LA-resident composer Gernot Wolfgang (b. 1957, right), an arrangement of the celebrated Chaconne from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004, a Barrière Sonata, and an Offenbach duet.

July 20 brings perhaps the stand-out event of the season. To celebrate the 56th anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s first walk on the Moon, astronaut-violinist Sarah Gillis joins Martin Chalifour (violin), Andrew Duckles (viola), Cécilia Tsan (cello), and Tim Durkovic (piano) to play Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat major, Op.44.

Sarah Gillis flew to space in September 2024 on Jared Isaacman’s Polaris Dawn mission, where she played John Williams’ "Rey's Theme" from Star Wars: The Force Awakens (click here or on the image above). For this concert—with John Williams' blessing—Gillis will play the violin and piano version of that piece especially for the Mount Wilson music series. The program will also include Beethoven’s Piano Trio No. 4 in B-flat major, Op. 11. This will also be the first time in MWO’s concert series that chamber music with piano has been included.

On August 3, the Zelter String Quartet (Kyle Gilner and Gallia Kastner (violins), Carson Rick (viola), and Allan Hon (cello)) return by popular demand, with a fascinating program that pairs music from the 19th and 21st centuries. This acclaimed ensemble of youthful musicians will give the world premiere of City of Angels (2024), a three-movement homage to his home city of Los Angeles by Todd Mason (b. 1957, left), together with the first of Beethoven's celebrated "late quartets," his String Quartet No. 12 in E-flat major, Op. 127, composed in 1825.

As noted above, in the very first Mount Wilson concert in July 2017 Cécilia Tsan was partnered by violinist Ben Powell (right). Ben Powell died in October 2024, one day after his 38th birthday, and in “Celebrating Ben Powell” on August 17, Cécilia Tsan will be joined by Leah Zeger (violin and vocals), Zach Dellinger (viola), Roch Lockyer (guitar and vocals), and Brian Netzley (bass). Cécilia Tsan writes: “As Ben’s friends, we will perform music from various genres, honoring his exceptional versatility on the violin and his beautiful soul.”

August 31: Leelou and Friends. Leelou is a young vocalist (and cellist) from Paris who was in the finals of the French reality singing competition The Voice: La plus belle voix in 2017 at the age of 11. Leelou graduated two years ago from the Pau Conservatory, and has been touring as Nefertari (left) in the French musical Les Dix Commandements in Europe. At Mount Wilson she, together with her friends Tony Bredelet (vocals and guitar), and Arnaud Dunoyer (keyboard), will offer a variety of songs featuring the various genres that she loves.

On September 21 the 2025 Mount Wilson season turns to strictly classical repertoire when the New Hollywood String Quartet (below, l-r: Tereza Stanislav (violin), Andrew Shulman (cello), Rafael Rishik (violin), Robert Brophy (viola)) offer an all-Schubert program. They will open with the String Quartet No. 12 “Quartettsatz” in C minor, D. 703 (1820) and then will be joined by Cécilia Tsan as second cellist to perform what is arguably the very pinnacle of Schubert’s astonishing final year of composition and, tragically, his life—the String Quintet in C major, D. 956, which he completed only two months before his death in November 1828 at the age of 31.

October 5: Musical Friends. Roger Wilkie (violin), Jonah Sirota (viola), Cécilia Tsan (cello), Geoff Osika (bass), Gigi Brady (oboe), and Sergio Coelho (clarinet) will present a winds and strings celebration.

This program of 20th century music, curated by Jonah Sirota, will include works by Benjamin Britten, Sergei Prokofiev, and most intriguingly Hans Gál OBE (right), the Jewish/Austrian composer, pedagogue, musicologist, and author who fled the Nazis to the UK in 1938 and stayed there for the rest of his very long life (1890-1987).

Finally, on October 19 the Dome will resound to Mexican rhythms, tunes and timbres when it hosts Mariachi Lindas Mexicanas, LA’s all-female mariachi band, which was founded in Boyle Heights, California in 2007 by musical director Maricela Martínez (left), a musician with more than 20 years of experience in the mariachi business. “The goal of Mariachi Lindas Mexicanas is to share this tradition with younger generations around the world."

After its construction during World War 1 and “first light” in November 1917 for the 100-inch Hooker Telescope, major astronomical discoveries made the Dome a uniquely significant temple to science during the first half of the 20th century: now, with acoustics that rival the great cathedrals of Europe, in the 21st century it has become an equally unique concert venue. If this brief preview of the 2025 Sunday Afternoon Concerts in the Dome has whetted your appetite, tickets for all the above concerts are available now from the Mount Wilson Observatory website—enjoy!

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Images: Dome exterior: Todd Mason; Cécilia Tsan: Facebook; Peter Erskine: artist website; Gernot Wolfgang: composer website; Sarah Gillis: YouTube; Todd Mason: composer website; Ben Powell: Summit records; Leelou: Facebook; New Hollywood String Quartet: artists' website; Hans Gál: The Well-Tempered Ear; Dome interior: Irina Logra, courtesy Mount Wilson Observatory; Maricela Martínez: Alliance for California Traditional Arts.

Mason Concerts 2025: The Opening Two Programs

l-r: Todd Mason, Chloé Tardif, Tim Durkovic, Cécilia Tsan, Kyle Gilner, Luke Maurer (March 29).

REVIEW

• The Debussy Trio play Rota, Mason, and Bax, February 22

• Five LA stars play Mozart, Mason, and Schumann, March 29

JOHN STODDER, JR.

The 2025 Mason House season is underway, with its usual rich programs of chamber music fitted inside a modest West Los Angeles living room with remarkable acoustics and room to seat up to 50 classical music fans, plus a backyard patio where wine and food are available from a buffet donated to each gathering by Ethel Phipps. Due to the LA fires, Todd Mason was forced to postpone his first concert in the series from January until June, but the following two took place as scheduled, and the next one is just around the corner on April 12. Here is a review of February’s concert, and a brief account of March’s.

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The Debussy Trio, February 22: Harp Liberation

Nino Rota (1911-1979): Sonata for Flute and Harp (1937)

I. Allegro molto moderato

II. Andante sostenuto

III. Allegro festoso

Todd Mason (b.1957): Magical, for flute, viola, and harp (2023) 

I. Andante (Sunrise)

II. Adagietto (Daydreams)

III. Allegro moderato (Magic Carpet)

Arnold Bax (1883-1953): Fantasy Sonata for Viola and Harp, GP 284 (1927)

I. Allegro molto

II. Allegro moderato

III. Lento espressivo

IV. Allegro.

If you attended this concert by The Debussy Trio (Angela Wiegand, flute; David Walther, viola; Marcia Dickstein, harp), you came away from it knowing more about one of the most readily identifiable instruments in all of music, the harp. The sold-out audience was treated to discussions from the perspectives of a musicologist (the LA Philharmonic’s frequent pre-concert educator Dr. Kristi Brown), from a composer who has written chamber music for harp (Todd Mason, whose Magical was played here), and finally from Ms. Dickstein, who spoke memorably about perception vs. reality in the tough world of harp music.

“I have worked my entire career to take it out of the restaurant, to take it out of being that ‘Oh isn’t that sweet and pretty?’ No, it’s not, it’s a m---f--- to play,” she said. “I want people to have an opinion about my instrument. I wanted it to be respected for being able to play incredibly difficult music. It’s a really great instrument. But listen to it and judge it like you would a piano. Because you know great piano playing, you know great violin playing and hopefully you’ll know great harp playing.”

The Debussy Trio: David Walther, viola; Marcia Dickstein, harp; Angela Wiegand, flute.

Mason said it’s a challenge for a modern composer accustomed to changing keys at will to write for the harp because it is a diatonic instrument, meaning it only has seven notes, A-G, corresponding to the white keys on the piano. To reach the sharps and the flats, Dickstein must use the harp’s seven pedals, which give each string three potential notes. “Depending on where my feet are, I can be wrong in every imaginable (way),” Dickstein said.

Attending a rehearsal, Mason noticed how busy her feet were as she kept up with his key changes. But Dickstein made it clear that, at least speaking for herself, she didn’t want composers dialing back on the modulations to spare the harpist. Instead, she seeks out challenging, wonderful music for her instrument.

The Debussy Trio is named after the chamber music lineup defined by those instruments, trios for flute, viola and harp being first popularized by Claude Debussy with his 1915 Sonata, L. 137. Within the niche of chamber music, this piece has had a big influence. Among more than 50 composers since Debussy who wrote for this configuration are Darius Milhaud, Maurice Duruflé and Walter Piston, while Wikipedia lists almost 40 flute, viola and harp trios that perform throughout the world.

Dr. Kristi Brown.

In her pre-concert talk, Dr. Brown described the “connective tissue of sound” that the Debussy-style trio encompasses and presents to the ear. It is an unusual combination but the three contrasting sounds “vibe together,” she said, in the interchange between the continuous notes of the flute, the plucked notes of the harp and the viola’s ability to do both.

In this concert, only Mason’s composition used the full trio lineup. As he explained, Magical is a programmatic piece, a surreal three-part narrative about daydreams that ends with a magic carpet ride above the city “watching things change.” The instrumentation was perfect for conveying the images he created. I especially loved the way the second movement, “Daydreams,” opened with a viola solo that extended a kind of invitation to the flute and then the harp to wander through a dreamscape where alluring fragments of melody floated into each other, striving to connect but then letting go, finally letting the viola take over and bring the daydreamer back to reality.

Helicopter view of downtown Los Angeles.

To describe the final movement, my notes say this: “Like a slow gallop, like a magic horse playfully riding the waves of air.” The music in this section was joyous and fun in its evocation of flight, but I couldn’t help but be reminded of the images on TV from helicopters flying over an LA transformed by fire. But the music pushed those images out of my mind and took me back to the reassuring narrative of touring the cityscape on a flying carpet.

Nino Rota is a familiar name to fans of classic mid-century Italian cinema, especially the films of Federico Fellini, for whom Rota’s role was more like a collaborator. No one who’s seen 8½, La Dolce Vita, or Amarcord can possibly remember scenes without recalling Rota’s musical accents. He also wrote award-winning soundtracks for Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather and The Godfather Part II. In all, he wrote 171 film scores between 1933 and 1979.

Nino Rota, aged 12 (1923).

But at the time he wrote his Sonata for Flute and Harp, he was an already renowned young composer, a former child prodigy, and a student of composition at a conservatory in Rome. He did write one movie score in 1933 but would not complete another until 1942, so this Sonata came about five years before he committed to the art form that made him world famous.

For film buffs and fans of Rota’s, this piece was a chance to hear what might have been, the road not taken. But the piece itself seemed to fit into exactly what we know about his music. The expertly played flute opening to the first movement signaled happiness and a carefree attitude. A subsequent harp solo was gorgeous, cheerful, and uncomplicated. Images came to mind immediately that matched the sounds.

Fellini and Giuletta Masina.

The second movement was more formal and austere, and it perfectly conveyed that seriousness. Rota might be a genius at conveying identifiable emotions. Moment to moment, you didn’t need to guess what human feeling this composer was trying to express. I thought of the soulful eloquence of Fellini’s wife and frequent star, Giuletta Masina, whose face was like Rota’s melodies—a perfect mirror of emotion. It was fascinating to hear a Nino Rota unconnected with film and yet writing music that seemed like a calling-card for the masterful scores he would go on to write.

Arnold Bax in 1922.

The Arnold Bax piece that David Walther and Marcia Dickstein performed after the intermission was a dense beauty. Bax wrote a lot of music that included the harp, including a single-movement Elegiac Trio scored for just this combination of flute, viola and harp. But Dickstein doesn’t prefer that and instead presented the 1927 Fantasy Sonata for Viola and Harp. “The harp writing is really hard, but it’s really good. It takes you to the edge of what’s playable.”

Before my Mason House concertgoing career began, I’d never heard of the prolific British composer Arnold Bax, but I’m becoming a fan. Dickstein’s and Walther’s passionate and sensitive playing conveyed Bax’s lonely, brooding reflections on rural Ireland and its vast beauty. Like his more famous contemporary, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Bax defines his Britishness through meditations on nature and place. But Bax seems to try less hard to paint the perfect picture, instead making room for more idiosyncratic reflections.

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“Mozart-Mason-Schumann”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, K. 478 (1785)

I. Allegro

II. Andante

III. Rondo

Todd Mason: L’etreinte de l’amour for string quartet (2108)

Robert Schumann (1810-1856): Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 44 (1842)

I. Allegro brillante

II. In Modo d’una Marcia. Un poco largamente

III. Scherzo. Molto vivace 

IV. Allegro, ma non troppo.

Five weeks later, I returned to Mason House, this time for a very different concert played by five of LA’s most outstanding musicians, Kyle Gilner and Chloé Tardif (violins), Luke Maurer (viola), Cécilia Tsan (cello), and Tim Durkovic (piano). This culminated in a warm, powerful performance of Schumann’s Piano Quintet, which followed Mozart’s First Piano Quartet and Todd Mason’s L’etreinte de l’amour. The concert opened with a performance of the Ukrainian national anthem, arranged by Mason for string quartet to commemorate the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion.

This is not really a full review—I didn’t anticipate writing one and didn’t make notes—but if it was a full review, it would be a rave. For those who have read the Pink Section of the San Francisco Chronicle, this review will be only slightly more substantial than the picture of the Little Man. The verdict on this concert: The Little Man is leaping out of his chair.

And, come to think of, I leapt out of my chair after each piece was completed. I was not alone in this. Mason House audiences know their classical music and know not to applaud between movements, but on this night, they did. This was a concert that moved the audience physically, especially the Schumann Quintet, a powerful, heroic, overtly Romantic masterpiece, where each movement gives the musicians opportunity after opportunity to make a loud, visceral impression. The notes may fade from my memory, but I will never forget how Cécilia Tsan’s bow mashing her resonant C string made me feel.

Individually and then as a roaring ensemble, her companions Tim Durkovic, Kyle Gilner, Chloé Tardif, and Luke Maurer all had moments that also resonated for me physically, that made me want to stand up and pretend to conduct them, or march around the room. The Piano Quintet is also lavishly, emphatically melodic to the point where I was quietly humming along with it. It was a rare treat to hear such a big piece in such an intimate space. I feel tattooed by it.

To take nothing away from the other performances—of the Mozart Piano Quartet, a mighty piece in its own right, albeit more restrained and judicious in its use of noise; nor of Mason’s short, loving string quartet honoring a relative’s wedding—but I’m most grateful that musicians of the caliber of Gilner, Tardif, Maurer, Tsan, and Durkovic gave so much of themselves to deliver the Schumann. This was a performance never to forget.

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Mason Home Concerts, 3484 Redwood Ave., Mar Vista, CA 90066, 6:00 p.m.

• The Debussy Trio, Saturday, February 22, 2025. 

• Mozart-Mason-Schumann, Saturday, March 29, 2025.

Images: The performances: Todd Mason; Helicopter view: Brian L. Frank, courtesy los-angeles-helicopter-tours.com; Fellini and Masina: everythingbutpopcorn.com; Bax: Herbert Lambert, courtesy National Portrait Gallery.

Icons, Inspiration, and Metamorphoses at Long Beach

Arturo Sandoval performs his Trumpet Concerto No. 2 in the Terrace Theater with the Long Beach Symphony under Music Director Eckart Preu.

REVIEW

Long Beach Symphony, Terrace Theater, Beverly O'Neill Performing Arts Center, Long Beach

DAVID J BROWN

As with so many in the LA area, some Long Beach Symphony musicians have lost their homes or been displaced by the recent fires. Some have lost everything, including essential concert attire. If you are able to help, please consider making a contribution through this online form.

The fourth concert in the LBSO’s 90th anniversary 2024-2025 Classical series was billed under the tagline “Musical Fusion with Arturo Sandoval,” and there were indeed fusions and links—musical, personal, and locational—all over this event, which was even more celebratory than usual and as ever performed under the baton of Music Director Eckart Preu.

One link not represented, however, was any kinship of blood between Adam Schoenberg (b.1980), composer of the opening work, and his famously challenging (sur)namesake, Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)—respectively present and former LA residents—though in an engaging pre-concert chat with Maestro Preu (left), Adam Schoenberg did reveal that his 4th great-grandfather was also 4th great-grandfather to George Gershwin, composer of the work next on the program after his own piece.

Certainly there’s no hint of rigorous 20th-century modernism in Cool Cat (2023), the short concert opener commissioned from Schoenberg by the Los Angeles Philharmonic as a tribute to P-22, the puma that became isolated in the city’s Griffith Park and survived there for a decade until he was caught and euthanized in 2022. There’s no denying that this was an effective start to the program in the LBSO’s energized performance, but at risk of being the party-pooper, I found myself oddly averse to both the nature of the commission and the piece itself, which to me was five minutes of forgettable, if skillfully wrought, sub-John Williams orchestral heroics, all aspiring horns and trumpets interlaced with much percussion, led by four deep toms.

As for the commission, there seemed something just a bit distasteful about the Hollywood-style mythologizing and romanticizing of the animal’s situation, trapped as he was by two monster freeways into an area that Wikipedia notes as being 31 times too small for the typical range needed by his species in the Santa Monica Mountains, and found to be chronically malnourished and suffering from multiple injuries and ailments when he was finally captured. Though Schoenberg notes that he “was specifically asked to not write an elegy” (so fair enough), it’s possible to conceive of a very different creative response to P-22’s plight.

Gershwin (right) in Cuba with
 the actor Frank Morgan.

With Rhapsody in Blue and the Second Rhapsody in 2018, An American in Paris in 2023, and the Concerto in F last November, this concert’s inclusion of the Cuban Overture by George Gershwin (1898-1937) brought Preu and the LBSO close to a complete survey of his standalone orchestral works.

Billed as Rumba but retitled Cuban Overture after its 1932 premiere for more concert cred, the work might well also be dubbed “An American in Cuba,” reflecting as it does Gershwin’s reveling delight in the island’s culture and Havana night-life as enjoyed on a recent vacation, and in specific musical terms the then-exotic Caribbean rhythms and percussion sounds.

After Cool Cat’s hectic triumphalism, the Cuban Overture brought a welcome re-set with the amiable swagger of its initial Moderato e molto ritmato, and then balm to the ear when a couple of minutes into the first part of the work’s ABA structure the massed violins sang out the long-breathed main theme against an ear-tickling ensemble of bongos, claves, gourd, and maracas wielded with pin-point delicacy by the LBSO’s intrepid percussion team. Principal clarinet Sérgio Coelho gave all the required expressive freedom to the brief quasi-cadenza with which Gershwin introduces the dreamy Sostenuto central section, and then with the opening music’s return at a faster Allegretto ritmato, Preu pressed pedal to the metal all the way to a deliriously exuberant end.

Then it was time for the star of the show, with a rapturous welcome for the 10-times Grammy award-winning, Cuban-born (there lay another correspondence), jazz trumpeter and composer Arturo Sandoval (b. 1949), who introduced and played his Trumpet Concerto No. 2 (2017). After a grandly scene-setting opening flourish for soloist and orchestra, the first movement proceeded with unabashed joyous romanticism, slowing for a melody that bore a more than passing resemblance to “Tara’s Theme” from Max Steiner’s Gone With The Wind score, before arriving at a suitably heroic conclusion.

Wistful nostalgia characterized the central Andante sostenuto, where eloquent duetting for harp (Marcia Dickstein) and flute (Diane Alancraig) prefaced the trumpet’s long-drawn main theme. The finale’s opening was surprisingly subdued, belying its Allegro maestoso marking, but the percussion cohort rekindled those Cuban rhythms and sounds, and the first movement's robust optimism soon returned. Towards the end, Sandoval’s score briefly hands over the trumpet's extravagant roulades and flourishes to a solo violin, with concertmaster Roger Wilkie here seamlessly assuming the aural pyrotechnics before the final trumpet-topped climax. The near-capacity audience loved it all.

Hindemith in the 1940s.

After the interval came a sea-change, not so much of pace but of sensibility. Though his works rarely appear in concert programs now, Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) was a greatly accomplished (many would simply say, great) German composer, theoretician, and teacher, whose career continued to flourish after Nazi disapproval drove him to emigrate, eventually to the US in 1940.

His Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber embodied some music composed three years earlier for an abortive ballet project, but as completed in 1943 exhibits few signs of balletic origins. Hindemith justifies his titular “symphonic” with a four-movement, medium-fast/scherzo/slow/medium-fast structure, though given its brilliant timbral explorations it could equally be regarded as a “concerto for orchestra.” Amongst his considerable orchestral output, the Symphonic Metamorphosis thus tends to be characterized as an exuberant showpiece, but Preu and the LBSO’s scorching performance revealed the piece, to this listener at least, to be far more than just that.

Weber in 1814.

Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826) is sometimes dubbed the “father of German musical Romanticism,” but Hindemith’s reworking of four of his piano duets was wholly of its own time. Listening to the infectious swagger of the opening Allegro it was easy to picture a military parade, an impression which was reinforced in the concluding Marsch—that army was now literally on the march, and meant business.

By contrast, Hindemith in his third movement Andantino manages—whether by design it’s impossible to know—to conjure up in just four minutes a similar sense of tragic war aftermath to that depicted in Prokofiev’s “Field of the Dead” from Alexander Nevsky. But perhaps most telling in this context is the Turandot Scherzo, the second and much the longest and most elaborately constructed movement in the Symphonic Metamorphosis.

Taking a faux chinois melody that Weber borrowed and reworked in his Incidental music for Turandot, J. 37 (1809), Hindemith subjects it to torrential repetition, starting innocently enough in flute and piccolo but then passing from instrument to instrument and section to section with seemingly endless resourcefulness and growing vehemence until, blared out by the brass over swirling strings, it culminates in a cymbal-clashing orchestral explosion. Still not done, after subdued string quiverings Hindemith brings the tune back yet again, now with a jazzy syncopated gloss (a nod to Gershwin, perhaps?), and sends it flying around the orchestra with extra counterpoints and percussion interjections until again it explodes, this time into a receding tintinnabulation of bells and other percussion that ends the movement.

Maestro Preu’s detailed spoken introduction to the work vividly conveyed his esteem for it, just as his ability to infect his orchestra with that esteem was manifest in the LBSO’s performance. I’d never previously heard the Turandot Scherzo played with such force and menace, a lemming-like “rush to destruction” that somewhat recalled the comparably repetitive and threatening “Nazi march” in the first movement of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 “Leningrad.” To my ears, Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis is just as much a “wartime work,” with all that implies.

Finally came the first performance of SERGE, a six-minute conflation of the main themes from the latter two movements of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, arranged by the Southern California-based composer and orchestrator Bob Barrett in collaboration with and for Arturo Sandoval, whose heart-on-sleeve declaration of love for the original and desire to perform (some of) it, as well as his playing of those so-familiar melodic lines, surely won over any grumpy purists present.

And, of course, there were encores. First, the star of the show reminisced movingly about his humble Cuban origins and his meeting and eventual friendship and collaboration with Dizzy Gillespie (1917-1993), who helped enable Sandoval to defect to the USA while on tour with the band in Athens in 1990. As he fervently lauded the freedom he’d found in America after living in Castro’s repressive regime, it was difficult not to be aware of a certain elephant in the room.

In a perfect segue, Arturo Sandoval followed up with his own tribute to his friend and mentor, singing, for “Dear Diz,” Every Day I Think of You, to discreet and lulling accompaniment from Preu and the orchestra. He then ended with an exhortation to the near-capacity audience, on its feet now, to join in When the Saints Go Marching In. They did.

Arturo Sandoval at the post-concert
reception with Eckart Preu.

Belying the program’s rather scrappy look on paper, in which the Hindemith seemed to stand head and shoulders above the rest in sheer musical heft and invention, this proved to be a huge success for Arturo Sandoval, Eckart Preu, and the Long Beach Symphony.

Given the orchestra’s excellence from top to bottom, it’s invidious to single out any more individuals, but given that the larger-than-usual percussion cohort was central to the success of each work, a collective shout-out is deserved for Brian Cannady, Tyler Stell, Scott Higgins, Damion Friggillana, Nick Stone, and Milton Salazar, together with timpanist Gary Long.

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Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, Terrace Theater, Beverly O'Neill Performing Arts Center, Long Beach, Saturday, March 8, 2025, 7.30 p.m.

Images: The performance: author and Long Beach Symphony; Gershwin: Getty Images; Hindemith and Weber: Wikimedia Commons.

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