MUSIC REVIEW : WITH RANDS AT PODIUM, SONG CYCLES REALLY SPARKLED

With the plethora of contemporary music-making over the last two weeks, a first-time visitor might easily mistake San Diego for a citadel of the avant garde.

In La Jolla, UC San Diego’s Pacific Ring Festival just ended its marathon celebration of the latest fashions in multimedia artistic endeavor, with the likes of John Cage, Conlon Nancarrow and Nam June Paik in attendance, complementing the university’s own stable of resident composers.

This evening in Balboa Park at the Old Globe Theatre, the San Diego Opera will present the West Coast premiere of Peter Maxwell Davies’ provocative 1980 chamber opera, “The Lighthouse.” And Thursday night at Symphony Hall, the San Diego Symphony performed two recent orchestral song cycles by Bernard Rands, its composer in residence.

With Rands on the podium, San Diego audiences were able to hear for the first time the composer’s orchestral version of “Canti del Sole,” for which he was awarded the 1984 Pulitzer Prize in music. While UCSD’s Sonor ensemble presented the chamber orchestra version of the song cycle in February, 1984, at the university, the work’s emotional scope begs for the depth and explosive power of its orchestral incarnation.

A portion of that power came from tenor Paul Sperry’s impassioned vocal declamation of Rands’ expansive cantilena. Traversing 14 poems in four languages and many more temperaments, Sperry, who commissioned “Canti del Sole,” stressed the work’s essential unity. The dramatic power of his voice, rising from its rich baritone underpinnings, made the poetic journey from dawn to dusk immensely rewarding. Rands’ brilliant orchestration and exuberant fusing of voice and orchestra recommend “Canti del Sole” as a worthy successor to Gustav Mahler’s canon of orchestral song cycles.

To UCSD soprano Carol Plantamura was given the more challenging task of interpreting Rands’ earlier and less-accessible song cycle “Canti Lunatici.” Unlike its companion cycle, its complex lines and subtle textures are more successfully delineated by a one-to-a-part chamber ensemble, a recording of which has just been released on the CRI label with Plantamura singing and Rands conducting.

In “Canti Lunatici,” the soloist is required to provide nearly every vocal contortion imaginable. From laughs and whispers to operatic declamation and Sprechstimme, Plantamura crafted Rands’ vivid expressionistic tableau with conviction and skill. Slight amplification was used for the soprano’s cries and whispers, but the amplification could have been even stronger. And at times in her mid-range, Plantamura was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the orchestra. Nevertheless, one had to admire the wide catalogue of vocal techniques upon which she was able to call and among which she moved with such quicksilver facility.

While the idiom of “Canti Lunatici” may strike the ear as an homage to Arnold Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire,” it clearly is not derivative of that seminal opus. Beginning with an eerie vocalise accompanied by almost imperceptible stirrings from the percussion battery, the rest of the orchestra slowly invaded the work’s texture with whirring, explosive motives. The work’s mood flitted between the romantic and the ominous portents of lunar lore, at times teasing and other times mystifying the auditor.

Rands surrounded his song cycles with a pair of dutifully conducted Schubert works. The opening Overture to “Rosamunde” dragged under Rands’ guidance. Conducting without a baton, his hands pushed a stodgy downbeat rather than uplifting a graceful upbeat. Schubert’s Symphony No. 5 started out on a merrier note, but lacked the taut organization that would have made it sparkle.

To each challenge the orchestra rose with ample craft. Especially in Rands’ compositions, their devotion to just phrasing and intonation, as well as their spirited accommodation of the composer’s wishes, left little to be desired.