San Jose Turns Out in Droves for Favorite Conductor

By Eman Isadiar

Thousands of music fans flocked to the California Theatre in San Jose from March 26 through 29 to hear Symphony Silicon Valley conducted by George Cleve in perhaps the season’s most eagerly anticipated concert set.

The program opened with Le carnaval romain by Berlioz, followed by Brahms’ Violin Concerto with Korean soloist Ju-Young Baek, and concluded with Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 titled From the New World.

The Man behind San Jose’s Glorious Symphonic Past

Conductor George Cleve leads Symphony Silicon Valley in music by Berlioz, Brahms and Dvorak (Photo by Bob Shomler)

Recognized internationally as a distinguished conductor, George Cleve’s name in the Bay Area is forever associated with San Francisco’s hugely popular Midsummer Mozart Festival, which he founded nearly 35 years ago.

Many also remember Cleve as the music director who transformed the now extinct San Jose Symphony from an average regional ensemble to a highly acclaimed orchestra. His public charisma and capable leadership brought a new level of artistic prestige worthy of the state’s third largest metropolis.

Over the decade following Cleve’s departure in ’92, the symphony sadly fell into a downward spiral due to a host of controversial factors leading to its eventual demise.

However, Maestro Cleve returns frequently to San Jose, now as a favored guest conductor of Symphony Silicon Valley. One such occasion was the last week in March, when the public got a taste of San Jose’s glorious symphonic past in a highly energetic—and technically demanding—program.

Program Highlights

Le carnaval romain comes from an obscure and seldom-performed opera named Benvenuto Cellini by French composer Hector Berlioz.

Most operas begin life as a brief orchestral overture containing the most important musical elements, which the composer then uses to seek funding in order to complete the project. With Benvenuto Cellini, however, the sequence of events was reversed.

Four years after the full opera’s completion and disastrous premiere, Berlioz condensed the music into the concert overture we now know as Le carnival romain, which, on its own merit, has become a fairly popular and frequently played orchestral piece.

Korean violinist Ju-Young Baek appears with Symphony Silicon Valley in Brahms’ Violin Concerto (Photo courtesy of Symphony Silicon Valley)

Then came a unique and memorable rendition by Ju-Young Baek of the only violin concerto left by German composer Johannes Brahms. The concerto was composed during Brahms’ years in Vienna, and is dedicated to the legendary violinist Joseph Joachim.

The most prominent feature of the work is that it elevates the orchestra’s role to a near-equal partnership with the soloist in terms of skill and melodic importance.

Clearly, Baek is not afraid to dig deep into the strings for a passionate, gritty timbre. She brought a rare sensitivity to the piece, which demonstrated not only her irreproachable technique, but also her profound musical insight.

Baek’s powerful bowing, however, caused her instrument to require re-tuning at the end of the first movement. While this may have been slightly disruptive, the audience quickly slipped back into a musical trance with a remarkably lyrical Adagio movement. Baek’s richly grainy tone returned in the third movement for an exciting finale.

After many rounds of heartfelt applause, Ju-Young Baek offered the gift of an encore—a slow movement from one of Bach’s sonatas for violin solo. Gone was the highly emotional, deep bowing of Brahms, now replaced by a pure and unornamented sound, indicating Baek’s delicate musical finesse.

The concert reached perhaps its highest point with a strong and bold interpretation of Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony. George Cleve blew away the musical dust and cobwebs that tend to gather on such a widely performed work as the “New World”, and gave it a fresh symphonic coat of paint. It was the kind of performance that makes one want to rush home and look for that old CD of Dvořák’s immortal tribute to America.

Not surprisingly, wild applause and a standing ovation followed. As if a brave “New World” weren't enough, we got another stunning symphonic treat—Dvořák’s Slavonic Dance No. 1.

While recitalists and soloists almost always play additional music when the applause reaches a minimum requisite decibel level, orchestral encores are exceptionally rare, which made this concert all the more special.

Another fact deserving mention is that George Cleve conducted the entire program from memory.

San Jose’s Promising Musical Future

Though Symphony Silicon Valley has not yet completely filled the cultural hole left by San Jose Symphony, the latest concert with George Cleve at the helm was a welcome reminder that such a prospect is within reach.

Even years after his remarkable tenure in San Jose, the enigmatic conductor managed to draw an impressive crowd to the symphony in not one, but three shows, which, in this economy, proves only one thing.

Cleve’s baton is in fact a magic wand.

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

San Francisco Symphony Welcomes New Opera Director

By Eman Isadiar

San Francisco Opera's new music director Nicola Luisotti leads San Francisco Symphony in music by Kodaly, Bloch and Brahms (Photo by Dario Acosta)

So far this season, we have seen a host of distinguished guests from far and wide on the conductor’s podium at Davies Symphony Hall. But one man in particular stands out for the prominent position he will soon occupy in the city’s cultural life. In its latest concert, the San Francisco Symphony was led by the charismatic Italian conductor Nicola Luisotti, who has been named as San Francisco Opera’s next music director.

The stylistic variety of the program offered ample proof that Luisotti’s musical skills extend far beyond the realm of opera. The concert had a pronounced ethnic flavor with Kodály’s Dances of Galánta followed by Bloch’s Hebraic Rhapsody with cellist Michael Grebanier. The evening culminated with a symphonic monolith of the Romantic repertoire—Brahms’ Fourth.

Hungarian Dances

The Dances of Galánta opened in a slow and lavishly orchestrated movement, evoking gypsy music with haunting melodies from ancient times. Traveling to the remote corners of his native Hungary, Kodály seems to have amassed an impressive collection of folk songs from various regions, which he brought back to life in an entirely new form through his ground-breaking orchestral techniques.

Each of the five dances was progressively livelier and more colorful than the preceding one, leading to an exciting and rhythmically invigorating finale. Since the individual movements were performed attacca (with no significant pause in between), the dances merged together in a kind of musical patchwork, not unlike a symphonic counterpart to Liszt’s familiar Hungarian Rhapsodies for the piano.

Kodály’s Dances of Galánta feature an especially prominent part for the clarinet, which the symphony’s own Carey Bell played brilliantly. In comparison to other guest conductors, Luisotti seemed to take extra care to show his appreciation for the orchestra by acknowledging Bell and other musicians with important solos at length during the applause.

Grebanier Shines as the Voice of Solomon

Then came a stunning piece by Swiss-born American composer Ernest Bloch (not to be confused with German philosopher Ernst Bloch). Having served as director of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Bloch the composer is forever associated with the Bay Area’s musical heritage. He also taught composition at UC Berkeley, and was for a time a resident of Mill Valley.

Schelomo—Hebrew for Solomon—is a single-movement rhapsody for cello and orchestra inspired by Jewish texts attributed to King Solomon. The composer had originally intended the work for voice and orchestra, but could not decide between English, French, German or Hebrew as its language. He finally chose the cello over the human voice.

Bloch’s Hebraic Rhapsody clearly displays Jewish-inspired melodic motifs with the emblematic augmented second intervals of Middle-Eastern and Eastern European folk music. The work as a whole, however, contains no trace of any known authentic Jewish tunes.

Predating the golden age of American cinema by about four decades, Schelomo nevertheless evokes the rich orchestral sounds of the great biblical sagas produced by Hollywood in the mid to late 50s. In fact, much of the music for American films was written by European-born composers of Bloch’s generation, who may have shared some of the same formative influences.

San Francisco Symphony’s Michael Grebanier is no stranger to Schelomo, having appeared as the soloist ten years ago under Roberto Abbado. His sensitive interpretation conveyed at once majestic grandeur and gentle poetry, while bringing out the most soul-stirring tones a cello can produce.

Grebanier’s broad range of color—from his delicate overtone brush to his powerful and grainy bowing action—gave an especially vibrant voice to the fabled prophet-ruler of the Old Testament. A voice that elicited endless applause, multiple returns to the stage and a standing ovation fit for a king.

Luisotti’s Trump Card—Brahms’ Fourth

The final piece on the program, namely Symphony No. 4 by Johannes Brahms, was a worthy conclusion to an evening of successive symphonic delights. This highly dramatic and passionate work seemed especially well-suited to Luisotti’s musical temperament, and once again refuted any notion that he is strictly a conductor of opera.

Nicola Luisotti gave us a bold, extroverted Brahms with higher peaks and deeper valleys than most. While at times he seemed to physically draw out gushing symphonic waves with all his might, at other moments his conducting was distilled to the subtle movement of his head during the instrumental solos.

From Brahms’ thick orchestral textures, Luisotti often brought to the foreground a melodic line or fragment that would otherwise have gone unnoticed, making the audience aware of the interplay among the many layers of music.

If Luisotti’s rendition of music by Kodály and Bloch prompted the audience to sit up and take notice, his stellar performance of Brahms firmly earned their respect and admiration.

A Distinctive Style

From the first flick of his baton, Nicola Luisotti intrigued and fascinated the audience with his flamboyant, highly expressive conducting style. He brought a clear and evident measure of drama to the music being performed—perhaps a function of his operatic background.

But what exactly is this “conducting style” that sets one conductor apart from another, one might ask. It is a complex and mysterious concept, having to do with the knowledge of how music works, and the ability to somehow project this knowledge onto the musicians.

In addition to the established conducting gestures of entrance and exit cues, tempo and dynamics, every conductor also develops a set of his or her own highly individual signals, ranging from precise instrumental articulations to very abstract musical ideas.

Although the motions are aimed at the musicians, they can also have a profound influence on the public’s perception of the music by providing visual clues indicating humor, gravity, passion, serenity and so on.

This is where Luisotti’s gift truly came to light. His conducting is a kind of sign language that is nearly as comprehensible to the least musical member of the audience as it is to the highly trained musicians of the orchestra.

It is almost a shame that such a uniquely rich gesticular vocabulary should be confined to the dimly-lit War Memorial orchestra pit come September.

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

San Francisco Symphony Presents Famed Argentine Pianist

By Eman Isadiar

Martha Argerich appears with the San Francisco Symphony in Ravel's Piano Concerto in G (Photo courtesy of San Francisco Symphony)

If traffic was especially congested in downtown San Francisco on the evenings of March 5 through 7, a small woman from Buenos Aires may have had something to do with it. Contrary to her physique, pianist Martha Argerich is among the greatest musical giants of the century, which explains the masses who poured in to see her perform Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G with the San Francisco Symphony in three sold-out shows.

They may have come for Argerich, but they also stumbled upon an unexpected musical jewel: the Requiem by Romanian composer György Ligeti. The program opened with a late Renaissance choral work titled In eccelsiis by Giovanni Gabrieli, and closed with an early romantic tone poem called Lament and Triumph by Franz Liszt.

Only in his second year directing the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, Swedish-born Ragnar Bohlin has clearly hit the ground running. Being four centuries apart and infinitely different in style, each of the program’s two choral works had its own set of technical challenges.

For example, how does one perform in a modern concert hall such an ancient piece as Gabrieli’s In eccelsiis, which was meant to be sung in a church setting?

Perhaps for another choral director, such a dilemma would never even exist, as the rear chorus box at Davies Hall and the stage are the two obvious places for the singers. But Bohlin chose to break up the chorus into three groups of roughly 30 each standing on stage and along the length of the aisles on either side of the audience. This created a multi-dimensional flow of sound similar to the acoustics of a cathedral—at least for those seated in the orchestra-level section.

The instrumental accompaniment in Gabrieli’s music leaves room for different orchestrations, which in this performance was distributed among six brass instruments and an organ. Being primarily an instrument for ancient music, one would have expected the harpsichord in the center of the stage to be used in this piece. Ironically, the harpsichord was for the ultramodern music to follow.

The soloists, namely mezzo-soprano Lisa Scarborough, tenors Thomas Busse and Joel Jay Baluyot, and baritone Steven Rogino each sang their brief parts with impressive skill. Thomas Busse, who had the shortest solo of all, was particularly striking for his virtual absence of a vibrato, which is stylistically consistent with vocal music of pre-classical times.

Then came the evening’s most stunning surprise: Ligeti’s Requiem.

San Francisco Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas has repeatedly proven his gift for communicating very abstract and complex musical insights in a language that engages the simple laity and the aficionado alike.

An especially lengthy introduction from the stage, however, can be disconcerting as it usually signals a highly dissonant piece with irregular rhythms or other features not easily understood or appreciated by the average patron.

Perhaps such was the expectation as the audience braced for the Requiem after the conductor used the words “avant-garde” and “experimental” in his remarks. But the guarded, cautious listening soon gave way to a sense of interested intrigue, followed by thoughtful reflection.

Dissonant indeed was the opening Introitus, but not of the type the unrefined listener might find absurd or intolerable. It was a very familiar dissonance, like the hum of insects or the distant sound of an oncoming train—only laden with profound sorrow.

The first movement seemed to end in notated rests, as Tilson Thomas continued to conduct after the last notes had dissipated.

Ligeti’s music was filled with tone clusters—basically groups of neighboring notes played or sung simultaneously. This is especially difficult for the human voice as there is a very strong tendency for multiple voices to shrink into unison when singing in close harmonic proximity, or to expand into an octave when singing in sevenths. But never did the singers’ pitch slide discernibly in either direction, which, again is owed to the remarkable work of chorus director Ragnar Bohlin.

The third movement, De die judicii sequentia, was the most powerful, evoking deep, primal emotions ranging from utter anguish to absolute horror, particularly in the tutti passages. This is where the soloists, mezzo-soprano Annika Hudak and soprano Hannah Holgersson—both also from Ragnar Bohlin's native Sweden—displayed their stunning technique with laser-like accuracy in very uncomfortable harmonies or at the very limit of their ranges.

Another fascinating aspect of the music was the unusual way in which the instruments doubled the voices, making it difficult to tell where one ended and the other began. Also, the extremely low notes for both the voice and the tuba hinted at the chanting of Tibetan monks. In some instances, the notes were so low that they may well have been on the very edge of the human hearing spectrum.

The final movement titled Lacrimosa is where the harpsichord was finally put to use by the symphony’s keyboardist Robin Sutherland. This movement was intensely emotional and brought to mind the deep scars Ligeti must have sustained, having lost his entire family to the Holocaust.

Once again, congratulations to Maestro Tilson Thomas for his constant efforts to instill and cultivate a taste for modern art music in the public. Clearly, it takes not only a certain measure of boldness, but also a dash of faith in the audience’s openness to new musical experiences.

Of course, having a headliner such as Martha Argerich on the program probably made the task a little easier.

Those unfamiliar with Ravel’s Concerto in G will immediately note the composer’s reference to American music, particularly in the first and third movements. Could Gershwin—more than 20 years his junior—have influenced Ravel from across the Atlantic? That is unclear, but it is known that Ravel had taken a keen interest in jazz, which had already reached European shores by that time.

Aside from the Gershwinesque motifs, the concerto also bears signature traits of French impressionistic music, of which Ravel was himself a founder. These include frequent use of the pentatonic mode, parallel harmonies, and a whole-tone glissando of the harp.

Martha Argerich delivered a breathtaking performance, with perfectly shaped phrases and precisely controlled dynamics. She maneuvred her part with great agility from the foreground to the background and vice-versa, weaving through the many layers of music like a sort of musical chameleon. This was reciprocated by Michael Tilson Thomas’ very attentive conducting.

The Adagio movement contains perhaps Ravel’s most sublime music. Argerich produced the purest possible sound by delicately fluttering the damper pedal on the Hamburg Steinway in the most intimate passages. On a number of occasions, it seemed as though her fingers gyrated on the keys as if to create a vibrato similar to a string instrument.

Ravel’s energetic finale requires phenomenal physical prowess and stamina, both of which were found abundantly in Argerich’s musical reserves. Her flawless playing offers irrefutable proof that Rachmaninoff-sized hands are not a pre-requisite for perfect and absolute mastery of the piano.

The audience’s persistent standing ovation was rewarded with a surprising and very appropriate encore: Ravel’s “Fairy Garden” from Mother Goose, a four-hand piece featuring Argerich in the primo and Tilson Thomas in the secondo parts. This piece also exemplifies Ravel at his most elegant, with echoes of his other piano solo compositions such as Le Tombeau de Couperin or Pavane pour une infante défunte.

Seeing the maestro at the piano was a foretaste of next season, which will feature Michael Tilson Thomas as the soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 scheduled for January 2010.

The evening concluded with Liszt’s orchestral work called Lament and Triumph inspired by the writings of Italian poet Tasso. Michael Tilson Thomas gave his fans a subtle hint of his other musical interests by drawing a parallel between Liszt’s tone poem and rock music, naming Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and the music of Led Zeppelin. This reference definitely piqued the audience’s interest.

In Lament and Triumph, Liszt establishes the free romantic format of the orchestral “tone poem” versus the highly structured “symphony” of the classical period. Later generations of composers followed in Liszt’s footsteps by composing similar orchestral works, most notably among them Wagner, Strauss and Mahler.

Michael Tilson Thomas demonstrated yet again his facility for this repertoire in a rich and sensitive interpretation of Liszt’s tone poem. In fact, many consider Tilson Thomas a kind of artistic heir to the great romantics through his mentor Leonard Bernstein. He continues to be an ardent champion of the music of Mahler, which—not surprisingly—figures prominently in next season’s program and an eagerly-anticipated CD release.

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

More Mahler on the Menu at San Francisco Symphony

By Eman Isadiar

Conductor and music director Michael Tilson Thomas unveils San Francisco Symphony's 2009-2010 season. (Photo courtesy of San Francisco Symphony)

SAN FRANCISCO—Music director Michael Tilson Thomas announced the 98th season of the San Francisco Symphony at a press conference held on March 2. Following a prepared presentation, board president John Goldman and executive director Brent Assink expressed optimism about the minimal impact of the current economic climate on the symphony’s direction and goals leading to the centennial season and beyond.

The 2009-2010 season will open on September 9 with pianist Lang Lang, followed by a three-week festival exploring the music of Gustav Mahler and others with artistic ties to the composer. Segments of the festival will be filmed for future episodes of the symphony’s signature educational series Keeping Score. Selected Mahler works will also be performed on tour in New York and in Lucerne, Switzerland, while SFS Media plans to release a new album with Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand recorded live at Davies Hall in November 2008.

Other important season highlights include new Keeping Score episodes featuring music by Berlioz, Shostakovich and Ives to be broadcast on KQED in the fall, new residency projects with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and composer George Benjamin, and a star-studded roster of guest artists from violinist Itzhak Perlman to baritone Thomas Hampson. San Francisco Symphony will also host performances by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Gewandhaus Orchestra and Mariinsky Orchestra.

No Artistic Budget Cuts

Executive director Brent Assink announced that the symphony has sealed a new four-year collective bargaining agreement with the musicians, extending well past the symphony's 100th anniversary. He also added that the accompanying digital media agreement will enable the symphony to cultivate its audience base through technology.

With regard to economic conditions Board president John Goldman emphasized that, while the symphony’s endowment has been deeply impacted by the present crisis, the symphony’s board of governors is committed to maintaining the organization’s unsurpassed artistic excellence. He pointed out that, beginning in the fourth quarter of 2008, the board has taken significant measures to reduce the symphony’s administrative costs, and will continue to find new ways to weather the current economy. He insisted that none of these efforts will include a reduction to the artistic budget in any way, shape or form.

When asked if touring presented a significant drain on resources, Goldman replied that national and international concert tours are a great way to uphold the symphony’s image as a world-class orchestra. He added that the board is diligent to ensure that touring frequency and costs are sustainable over the long term.

Tilson Thomas the Pianist

Ending the conference on a musical note, Michael Tilson Thomas said that he has felt a new surge of inspiration to practice the piano. He added that he plans to appear as the soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 in January 2010, which he jokingly hoped would not be a “suicide performance.”

Tilson Thomas also spoke about his rediscovery of Schubert through the composer’s vast repertoire of four-hand piano music. He added that he often gets so absorbed in the music that he attempts to simultaneously play both parts alone.

For additional information about the San Francisco Symphony, visit sfsymphony.org or call (415) 864-6000.

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

San Francisco's New 'Swan' Takes to Flight

By Eman Isadiar

Several thousand lucky ballet fans witnessed the unveiling of yet another version of Tchaikovsky’s timeless Swan Lake, this time by San Francisco’s very own Helgi Tomasson. The new production, which closed on March 1, was presented at the city’s War Memorial Opera House in nine remarkably well-attended performances.

San Francisco Ballet's artistic director Helgi Tomasson creates a new Swan Lake
(Photo by Erik Tomasson / San Francisco Ballet)

Swan Lake is the single most universally recognized ballet of all time, perhaps with the exception of The Nutcracker. It affords such vast artistic possibilities that many generations of dancers and choreographers have retold the story, each in their own unique way. Thankfully, Swan Lake allows for creative variations and new twists even today.

The ballet is based on a Germanic folk tale about sorcery, deception and death. The evil magician Von Rothbart casts a spell on the beautiful Odette, thereby turning her into a swan during a chance encounter on the lakeshore.

The spell allows Odette to return to her human form for a few fleeting moments each day—just long enough only for the handsome Prince Siegfried to catch a glimpse and fall in love.

Meanwhile, the queen mother is busy trying to find a worthy wife for the prince. She throws a lavish ball, where royals and aristocrats from exotic kingdoms far and near parade themselves in order to win favor with the price. But Siegfried is already hopelessly smitten with Odette.

Suddenly, Von Rothbart enters the ballroom with his daughter, Odile, whom he has magically disguised as Odette. Thinking that he has found his beloved Odette, the prince tells the queen mother that he seeks no other bride. Upon hearing these words, Von Rothbart urges Siegfried to announce to the guests his intention to marry the young woman before him, which the prince does without a moment’s hesitation.

At this time, Von Rothbart lifts the disguise and declares that he has made the prince’s promise to marry the wrong woman into a powerful spell from which he can never escape. The prince flees to the wilderness in search of the real Odette, whom he finds by the lake.

Each bound by an unbreakable spell, Odette and Siegfried decide to seek reunion in the only way possible: death. The lake, which was once the birthplace of their love, becomes their watery grave. Von Rothbart—whose most powerful spells are now broken—also dies.

As customary, San Francisco Ballet displayed a different cast in the principal roles at each performance of its new Swan Lake. The show covered by this article featured Vanessa Zahorian, who was absolutely stellar in the twin roles of Odette and her imposter Odile. Even without her triple pirouettes of Act 4, which were all perfectly executed, Zahorian’s graceful demeanor brought great emotional depth to an already stunning production.

Other co-stars were Spanish born Ruben Martin and Arizona native Anthony Spaulding, who danced the parts of Siegfried and Von Rothbart with impressive prowess and skill.

Appearing in a supporting role, Japanese dancer Hansuke Yamamoto deserves mention for a few striking moves of his own, including some gravity-defying strides at Prince Siegfried’s 21st birthday celebration in Act 1.

Of the three sets designed by Jonathan Fensom, the scene outside the palace in Act 1 was the most imposing. In fact, a few of the set elements bore a vague resemblance to some of the exterior architectural details of the War Memorial Opera House itself and adjacent plaza. The ballroom scene of Act 3 was also intriguing with its pair of giant curving staircases and oversized full moon. The lakeside scene of Act 2 and Act 4, consisting of a single, colossal moonlit rock in the center, was bold, stark and dramatic.

Helgi Tomasson brilliantly incorporated some of the original choreography—probably dating back to the 1877 premiere—with the work of Pepita and Ivanov. He also included a solo for Prince Siegfried in Act 1, as first instituted by Nureyev. This solo was accompanied by a beautiful lighting effect, casting the dancer’s shadow on the palace gate behind him. Without a doubt, Tomasson’s new production leaves the most demanding and expressive parts to Odette and Odile.

The backbone of the ballet—the orchestra—was led masterfully by Paul Hoskins, who re-created the lush, symphonic sounds conceived by Tchaikovsky.

One of the most innovative additions to the ballet was in the final scene, where, at the precise moment of Siegfried’s and Odette’s drowning, a pair of electronically projected swans emerge from the lake and fly away. This brought a somewhat brighter ending to an otherwise gloomy tale.

It must be noted that Tchaikovsky’s haunting “swan” motif, which is heard repeatedly in the minor mode throughout the piece, makes its final appearance in a major key at the end, signaling perhaps the triumph of love over death itself.

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