MYSTICAL PLANETS AND LIVELY GERSHWIN ORTIZ AT FINAL SRS CONCERT

For their final concert of the 2024-2025 season the Santa Rosa Symphony programmed, in addition to a contemporary piece by Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz, two proven crowd pleasers: Gershwin’s 1925 Concerto in F, and Holst’s orchestral suite The Planets, composed during the first World War. These programming choices were borne out: all three set performances filled the Weill Hall, and its parking lots, to capacity. To digress from music, an end-of-season acknowledgement is in order: faced with the dread “shopping mall syndrome,” or “let’s drive around the parking lot for half an hour to find a spot 30 seconds closer to the entrance,” the SSU students serving as parking attendants and traffic directors have been unfailingly efficient, polite, and, especially, cheerful throughout, as have those working within the hall.

Once inside Weill, the audience was invited to participate in an unexpected tribute: conductor Francesco Lecce-Chong pointed out from the stage the presence of SRS Conductor Emeritus Corrick Brown, noting that it was his 95th birthday, and led a spirited audience rendition, with symphonic accompaniment, of “Happy Birthday."

In Mexico City, the word “Antro” can mean a bar, nightclub, or place of entertainment, and, similar to Copland’s 1936 “El Salon Mexico,” Ms. Ortiz’s 2019 “Antropolis” portrays the music and atmosphere of a whole range of past and present-day venues in Mexico City. It began with a long virtuosic solo on no fewer than six tympani by Andrew Lewis, followed by a brass flourish and introduction of the typical 3/3/2 hemiola rhythm, so common in Latin American music, on claves, which continues as an ostinato through much of the piece. It’s nothing if not percussion driven. In addition to tympani, the score calls for a trap drum kit, bongos, “almglocken” (Swiss cow bells), regular cowbells, glockenspiel, vibraphone, xylophone, maracas, marimba, and “three tin cans." In this performance, a brown quart and two gallon paint cans, one each red and blue, were used. The Spanish word for percussion section, “bateria,” seems appropriate in this case, and this impressive battery was equally impressively wielded by percussionist Allen Biggs and an augmented crew of assistants. A later tympani solo made use of the modern pedal tympani’s ability to change pitch during a single stroke.

Not that the piece was all percussion: brass, winds, and strings all got their turn with various dance rhythms, not to mention a couple of full-throated shouts by the orchestra. Overall, it was an infectious celebration and was greeted with immediate enthusiastic applause.

Gershwin’s Concerto was the composer’s first fully orchestrated work (his Rhapsody in Blue of the year before had been orchestrated by Grofé), and it displays the success of his studies in orchestration. Pianist Orion Weiss was the soloist in the work, beginning in traditional concerto form after four tympani beats, with a long orchestral introduction before the pianist’s first entrance.

Mr. Weiss’s ability to show power when called for, but also restraint, sensitivity, and even delicacy was impressive. His pianissimo playing could bring one to the edge of one’s seat every bit as much as the loudest passages, while careful rubatos during the lyrical second theme had just the right amount of emotion. Without score, he closely watched Mr. Lecce-Chong when playing long sections with the orchestra for a seamless merging of expression, and the audience couldn’t resist applauding at the end of the movement.

The slow second movement opens with the famous extended “bluesy” trumpet solo, beautifully played by Robert Giambruno, and a violin solo came from concertmaster Joseph Edelberg. A long Mr. Weiss solo could almost be considered a cadenza, followed by lush string writing for the full sections as well as a brief, but lovely, moment of just a string quartet. The movement crescendos to a sudden “grand pause,” another “edge of the seat” moment of silence, before resuming, then ultimately transitioning attacca to the hammering start of the third movement. Once again Mr. Weiss had the opportunity to contrast the power of the opening with light-hearted ragtime-like accompaniment. The theme of the first movement was restated, then developed, and even the opening’s tympani motif was repeated for a rousing finale. Once again, applause was enthusiastic and sustained.

In this era of space travel and Hubble Telescope images, it’s easy to forget that Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” has nothing to do with the eight physical planets, as Pluto wasn’t discovered until 12 years after the Suite was written, and has since been demoted as a planet. Even their names from Greek mythology were not germane, but rather their identities and influences in astrology. It’s subtitled a “suite for large orchestra,” but that should probably be very large orchestra, calling for no less than four flutes, three oboes plus English horn, three clarinets plus bass clarinet, three bassoons plus contrabassoon, six horns, three trombones and bass trombone, tenor as well as bass tuba, extended percussion, two harps, celeste, and organ, as well as the usual strings. The beginning of the first movement, Mars, the Bringer of War, is an eerie insectile clicking in the strings playing col legno (using the wooden stick, rather than the hair, of the bow) to presage the first statement of an ominous march that nowadays might be called “Darth Vaderesque.” It is made even more ominous, even lurching, in that it’s written in 5/4 (or sometimes 5/2) meter. Later in the movement the seldom-heard tenor tuba makes its first appearance, and it ends with a final crashing chord. Brief applause followed this, and all the other, movements.

The second movement (Venus, the Bringer of Peace) is a great contrast, beginning with a quiet French horn introduction and proceeding to harmonies in the four flute parts. In the development, the texture is further enhanced by Holst’s writing in two simultaneous keys (F# Major and Eb Major) for different instruments, including solos from Mr. Edelberg and cellist Adelle-Akiko Kearns. Mercury, the Winged Messenger, opens with a running motif 6/8 in muted strings. A later three-bar figure of three quarter notes, six eighth notes and two dotted quarter notes is repeated throughout the movement, perhaps presaging the minimalism of later composers, and also introduces the celesta instrument.

The fourth movement (Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity) is probably the most popular movement, and the music has a boisterous quality. The woodwind sound was brightened by two of the four flutes doubling on piccolo. Its second theme has the flavor of English folk songs, but is later developed, at half speed, into a majestic theme reminiscent of Elgar (to the point that it was later adapted as the patriotic hymn “I vow to thee, my country”). The fifth, Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age, is a slow march, perhaps suggesting the inevitability of age, with one of the four flute parts played an octave lower on an alto flute. While some might find the movement mournful in tone, it resolved to an ending that, if not cheerful, had a reassuring quality.

In Holst’s astrological interpretation, Uranus is the Magician, and the Orchestra’s brass were able to bring out not only the sardonic character of its introduction, but the subsequent march that alternated between jocular and threatening. The movement seems to me to have so much of the flavor of Dukas’ Sorcerer’s Apprentice, composed some 20 years earlier, that I had to wonder if it might have been an intentional pastiche.

The finale, Neptune, the Mystic, is in fact not only mystical, but mysterious, with repeated figures, once again in 5/4, and glissandi in two harps and celesta. In one of the most magical moments of the entire piece, the SRS was joined by the Young Women’s Chorus of San Francisco, singing six parts wordlessly offstage, and just as Holst might have wanted it was impossible to tell where the gorgeous sound was coming from. The score calls for the chorus to continue repeating the last bar, after the orchestra has stopped, until the sound dies away in the distance, and this was achieved perfectly, with a long moment of silence before loud and sustained applause.

The conductor brought the Chorus, with members from 12 to 18 years old, onstage for a bow and an encore, with gentle orchestral accompaniment, of Harold Arlen’s Somewhere Over the Rainbow.