Cabrera Does Wonders with Symphony of Teens

By Eman Isadiar

When San Francisco Opera’s artistic leadership was transferred from Donald Runnicles to Nicola Luisotti, the associate conductor under the former régime didn’t have far to go to find a new job. Donato Cabrera, simply packed his baton and crossed the street from the War Memorial Opera House to Davies Symphony Hall, where he now serves as San Francisco Symphony’s newest assistant conductor and music director of its acclaimed Youth Orchestra. Cabrera’s first matinee concert on November 15 was a clear testament to his rare skill not only as a conductor, but as an educator and motivator of young musicians.

Donato Cabrera begins his first season as San Francisco Symphony’s newest assistant conductor and music director of the Youth Orchestra (photo courtesy of San Francisco Symphony).

The program opened with The Infernal Machine by contemporary American composer Christopher Rouse. The title—which is not to be taken in the “diabolical” sense—could refer to the technical demands of a large orchestra, among whose instruments appear a slapstick, ratchet and sandpaper blocks.

Requiring the highest level of rhythmic precision, this brief symphonic work awakens, excites and invigorates with its relentless pace and constant musical surprises. After hearing Rouse’s five-minute showpiece, one could easily spend twice as long wondering just how such sounds were possible.

Rouse later used The Infernal Machine as the second movement of a larger symphonic work titled Phantasmata.

Compared to the works of later composers, Haydn’s plentiful symphonies are often perceived as naively optimistic and gentle. Yet the second piece on Cabrera’s program, namely Symphony No. 92 by Haydn (also known as the Oxford), offered the perfect counterbalance to the opening music by Christopher Rouse.

As though the rhythmic complexity of the preceding piece had somehow heightened the listener’s awareness, the delicate nuances of Haydn’s musical symmetry came through with elegance and clarity.

While the symphony was one of three works commissioned to be performed in Paris, it was reportedly conducted by Haydn in 1791 at a ceremony in London, where the composer was awarded an honorary doctorate in music. Owing to the occasion of its premiere, the work was immediately dubbed the Oxford Symphony.

In passages alternating between major and minor modes, Haydn creates a sense of contrast between light and dark, tension and release. Haydn’s own unique brand of counterpoint is ever present in this work, and clear thematic relationships from one movement to the next bind the symphony together as a cohesive whole.

It was in the program’s final piece, Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations, where the extraordinary skill and passion of the young musicians came shining through with dazzling brilliance. The piece also brought to focus the electrifying chemistry between Cabrera and the youthful talent now in his care.

The Enigma Variations form a set of theme and fourteen variations, each depicting one of Elgar’s close personal friends and colleagues. Using the individual’s nickname, initials, or a linguistic code as the title for each variation, Elgar keeps the identities of his subjects somewhat secret; hence the “enigma.” Biographers and musicologists, however, have long since unraveled every last one of Elgar’s mysterious subjects in exacting detail.

Specific musical elements in each variation depict one or more of the subject’s character traits—often with affection or humor—as well as a general impression of the individual’s personality. Winifred Norbury’s laugh in Variation VIII, titled W.N., or Dora Penny’s stutter in Variation X, titled Dorabella, are both unmistakable examples of the tender fondness with which Elgar remembers his friends in this musical tribute.

The grand finale of Variation XIV, titled E.D.U., is an allusion to the composer’s own nickname, “Edu”, as he was often called by his wife, Alice, and also contains references to some of the earlier variations. In this section, the music reaches exhilarating dynamic peaks for a befitting conclusion to what has become Elgar’s best-known large-scale composition.

The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra remains among the nation’s top teen ensembles (photo courtesy of San Francisco Symphony).

With such a widely varied program in form and style, the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra once again proved itself capable of tackling the most challenging of symphonic works worthy of its venerable adult counterpart. Under Maestro Cabrera’s leadership, this highly gifted symphony of teens promises to achieve great victories in seasons to come.

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Eman Isadiar teaches piano at the Peninsula Conservatory and writes about music in the San Francisco Bay Area.