An Ojai Diary: Severity in Shangri-La : Pierre Boulez, birds and drizzle have their impact

F riday, June 2 . An old friend accosts me as I impatiently join the patient mob trying to get past the two leisurely ticket-takers at Libbey Bowl.

At least the jostling gentleman with the thermos and the blanket acts like an old friend. I swear that I have never seen him before.

Ojai is like that. It breeds familiarity.

It does not breed contempt. This, after all, is the place that gave the world its first concrete--stubbornly black-and-white--image of James Hilton’s lost horizon.

Ojai, you may have forgotten, served as the original Shangri-La. It was this mock-Himalayan utopia of peace, health and eternal life that lured Ronald Colman from the quaintly clangorous civilization of 1937.

Now, it is festival time again. For one deliriously over-loaded weekend, and for the 42nd such weekend since 1947, concerts are returning to the sleepy little town where the Chumash used to roam.

More important, perhaps, Pierre Boulez is returning, for his fourth visit since 1967, to serve as music director.

Summertime, and the music is classy. Also difficult, esoteric, analytical, stimulating, provocative, illuminating, vexing, sophisticated . . . .

“I’ll bet you can’t write a review of Ojai without mentioning the ‘gnarled old sycamore,’ ” my friendly inquisitor challenges. His fingers trace the quotation marks in the air.

“You always mention it,” he adds. He points to the noble arboreal relic that flanks the stage. His tone is faintly accusatory.

I wince. I hate cliches. I can’t resist bets.

The champions of Pierre Boulez think he is a genius. Period. It matters not whether he is composing or conducting.

His detractors think he is something of a pedant. They complain that his music could be written by a computer, and probably is. They say he should conduct with a scalpel rather than a baton.

In his quietly competent way, Boulez offers comfort to both camps. Contrary to beloved tradition, the weather this year at this alfresco celebration is cold and damp. The music, some might say, is cold and dry.

The inaugural concert is probably the most conservative event on the schedule. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go particularly well.

Boulez has chosen an intriguing and exceedingly complex agenda of vocal music. Rare choral works of Schubert, Debussy, Ravel and Gyorgy Ligeti comprise the first half. Ligeti, not incidentally, is the featured composer in non-residence.

The Pacific Chorale, trained by John Alexander, tries earnestly to meet the inherent virtuosic demands. Unfortunately, it isn’t a virtuosic ensemble.

Boulez beats time clearly, cues impeccably, yet cannot produce solidity where there is disarray. Entrances are tentative. Pitch sags. Timbres waver. Diction blurs. Boulez deserves better.

After intermission he turns to an old Ojai icon: Stravinsky. The four peasant songs (“Saucers”) sound perfunctory. Some spiffy solo singers and a gutsy, massive percussion battery enliven “Les Noces.” Still, clarity outweighs drama.

The audience applauds lustily. It doesn’t seem to care that the lavish program magazine--marked $2 but distributed gratis --contains excellent annotations by Paul Schiavo but no texts and no translations. So much for enlightenment in Shangri-La.

S aturday, June 3. The Ojai Valley News has hit the vending machines. It contains some interesting festival fodder. An interview with two pianists actually graces Page 1.

Inside, Bob Bryan, a guest columnist and longtime festival stalwart, recounts how railroad invasions used to punctuate concerts with ill-timed chugs and whistles. But the old orange train doesn’t run here any more.

A prominent editorial welcomes the 6,000 generous visitors eagerly expected by local merchants. It also heralds “the melodic sounds of the annual festival.”

Melodic sounds?

Right below the editorial, one finds Bruce Thomas’ political cartoon. It depicts two birds in conversation atop an anonymous tree in Libbey Park.

“I wouldn’t mind nesting right here,” says one rather testily, “if they played something recognizable with a melody. . . .”

Meanwhile, in the sports section, columnist David Coulson laments that “Villanova’s baseball team was slighted by the L.A. Times.” Life goes on.

The matinee concert introduces the melodic sounds of the Arditti Quartet. The fearless foursome--London’s aristocratic answer to the kinky Kronos--dares play Ligeti’s nervous Second Quartet, Boulez’ introspective “Livre pour quatuor” and Berg’s agonized Lyric Suite, all with incredible finesse.

Balances are impeccable. Nuances are delicately gauged. Technical problems are banished. Lyricism triumphs where one didn’t even think it existed.

This is music-making of vast intelligence and exalted sympathy. Too bad it avoids passion.

The big evening concert begins amid a steady drizzle. The pervasive chill forces some members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic to favor coats, sweaters and assorted jackets in place of their usual formal wear. The wind blows an empty beer-can from the canopy that extends the stage roof a few feet forward. An owl swoops down and angrily bombards some innocent music-lovers in the front rows.

It seems ominous.

Unfazed, Boulez conducts as if this were a balmy spring night. Ligeti’s brilliant “Apparitions” begins in a string whisper so low and so soft that it can be seen but not heard from Row R. Slowly, the eerie floating sonorities give way to ever-increasing explosions of agitation.

According to the program, the “climactic final passage requires the smashing of glass or plates.” I notice no smashing.

Janet Ferguson and David Weiss explore the convolutions of Ligeti’s Double Concerto for flute and oboe with dazzling panache. Boulez sustains calm amid the surface storm.

For the piece de resistance , he turns to “Solovey,” a.k.a. “Le Rossignol,” a.k.a. “The Nightingale.” He oversees a brisk, propulsive, transparent, elegant performance of Stravinsky’s perky little ode to Hans Christian Andersen.

The singers attempt rote Russian. Phyllis Bryn-Julson chirps the melismas of the titular bird with exquisite, other-worldly purity. Jonathan Mack voices the Fisherman’s chants sweetly. Michael Gallup grunts grandly as the Chamberlain. Strong support comes from Hector Vasquez as the foolish Emperor, Jennifer Trost as the giddy Cook, Stephanie Vlahos as the easily discouraged Death, and Peter Atherton as the bumbling Bonze.

Still, the drama lags behind the music. The concert-opera performance offers much concert, little opera.

The shivering crowd out front is stoic, receptive and attentive. One doesn’t applaud between movements in Ojai, but one goes in for a lot of whooping and hollering at the end.

S unday, June 4. Ursula Oppens joins Alan Feinberg for 2 1/2 hours of unusual music for two pianos at matinee time. It turns out to be a bit much of a very good, very demanding thing.

The tireless duo, united for the first time, brings more dash than delicacy to Mozart’s D-major Sonata, K. 488. A visiting bird, perhaps the one in the cartoon, croaks a happy contrapuntal obbligato.

The well-matched soloists play Lutoslawski’s marvelously sleazy Paganini Variations (1941) with marvelous splash. They neatly define the majestic ardor of Brahms’ Haydn Variations, Opus 56b, and unravel the knots and in-jokes of Ligeti’s “Monument--Selbstportrat--Bewegung” with wry wit.

Finally, given the splendidly quirky collaboration of Amy Knoles and William Winant, they survey the peppery intricacies and relatively sentimental indulgences of Bartok’s Sonata for pianos and percussion. A horse and rider bound down the wooded path behind the stage as Bartok gallops toward the ultimate cadence. It is a nice climactic coincidence.

All seats are filled for the festival finale at 5:30. Only a few patches of grass remain unoccupied in the expanded sprawling-room area behind the benches. Boulez packs ‘em in, even for an all-Boulez program.

The program, in part a repetition of works “rehearsed” in Los Angeles Philharmonic performances last month, is uncompromisingly severe, unerringly cerebral. It includes updated versions of the “Livre pour cordes,” “Eclat,” “Memoriale” (a lofty trial for the flutist Anne Diener Giles) and, finally, the “Trois Improvisations sur Mallarme.”

The cumulative result demonstrates the inherent logic, not to mention the formal evolution of Boulez’s fragile art. At the same time, it affirms his constant concern for structural integrity.

The tiny clusters of tone and subtle fragments of theme sometimes evaporate in cool twilight. This is brilliant busywork.

The discreet amplification system vacillates between tinny distortion and basic inadequacy. The rocky thump of a distant ghetto-blaster intrudes on the ethereal fioratura sighs of Bryn-Julson in the meanderings of the Mallarme poems. Still, Boulez exerts fascination, wonder and happy bewilderment.

Who cares if the performing conditions are imperfect? No one seems to care in Shangri-La. No one even seems to notice.

The Ojai Festival now lists individual sponsors for just about every participant and every work performed. The noble project is surviving, but the fiscal problems obviously have become grave.

The gnarled old sycamore, by the same token, is bravely confronting the indignities of decay and amputation. Carefully groomed and sturdily propped, it seems to be holding its own against cruel nature and cruel odds. There must be a symbol in there somewhere.

How much was that bet, old friend?

A Musical Post Card From Catalina. . .

As Ojai’s weekend of music got under way, the biennial Catalina Festival of Chamber Music began 26 miles off the coast. John Henken reports. Page 48.