Until the renovations to the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Music Center are completed, the San Diego Symphony must continue its itinerant existence. Friday night found the orchestra at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, where conductor Paolo Bortolameolli and pianist Janice Carissa made their local debuts.
The Chilean-Italian maestro became known to Los Angeles audiences as the associate conductor of the L.A. Philharmonic, where he memorably conducted the revival of Meredith Monk’s opera, “Atlas.”
In Escondido, he oversaw Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 in B minor, “Pathétique,” Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, and the local premiere of Chilean composer Miguel Farías’ “Estallido.”
We don’t encounter much classical music from Chile. This introduction to Farías was welcome and made more inviting on Friday evening by the composer’s presence. Farías explained that he composed this short work in 2019 during the “Estallido Social” (which he translated as “Social Uprising”). Beginning in October 2019 with protests and vandalism to the Santiago rail systems, the uprising culminated in 1.2 million Santiago citizens spontaneously gathering to demand reforms.
Most of us know little to nothing about these Chilean protests, due to the first impeachment proceedings of President Donald Trump saturating American news at the time. It was the most civil unrest Chile had experienced since the Pinochet regime, and it resulted in a constitutional convention.
Farías translated his title as “Explosion” and observed that the loud outburst passed from winds to strings to brass and timpani in the opening measures contains the musical material from which the rest of the work emerges. Different sections of the piece focus on shorter segments of that initial material, always varied. The result is an unpredictable flow with slow harmonic changes, over which we hear stretched out and sped up fragments of the opening explosion. His music is reminiscent of Finnish composers Magnus Lindberg or Esa-Pekka Salonen, but more cut up or distorted.
“Estallido” is scored for a modest-sized orchestra — woodwinds, trumpets, and trombones in pairs. Farías gets maximum color from this ensemble, aided by two percussionists playing a wide range of instruments that bring a Latin American flavor to the work with precisely notated bongo and conga drum parts. Under Bortolameolli’s direction, the musicians shined.
Pianist Carissa is a recent alumna of the Curtis Institute of Music and is currently studying in Juilliard’s graduate program. YouTube videos show her as a talented technician, but there’s not much revelation in those interpretations for a young pianist.
However, her playing in Ravel’s Left Hand Concerto was masterful, summoning ferocious sonorities in the bass register, flying to the top register and back with graceful agility. It was an astounding performance, suggesting great things to come from her.
The San Diego Symphony has made Ravel’s music a house specialty. Once again the musicians relished their solos (special shout out to Leyla Zamora’s murky contrabassoon) and created musical magic in their ensemble playing. With Bortolameolli’s generous baton work, it was a marvelous performance. During the concluding march, his entire upper torso swayed in time back and forth like a wind-up metronome.
Bortolameolli and the musicians gave a detailed account of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth.
I like lots of schmaltz in performances of the “Pathétique;” theirs was a more modern, clean reading. In CACE’s brightly resonant acoustics, they sounded terrific. Following a respectful silence after the work’s melancholy conclusion, the audience responded with heartfelt applause.
Hertzog is a freelance writer.