Grand Finale

At the risk of exaggeration, there is something almost ritualistic about the annual Ojai Festival, which laid itself out beautifully last weekend. For those who return here year after year, the festival--Ventura County’s one contribution to the world classical music scene--serves as a wonderful transitional experience, capping off the traditional concert season in grand fashion.

Really, though, the Ojai Festival ethos is a balancing act--between grandeur and intimacy, sophistication and the rugged outdoors. This year the weather behaved, and the alfresco intrusions were modest and sometimes even musical (as when the birds virtually sang along with Messiaen’s bird song-inspired piano piece, “Petites esquisses d’oiseaux.”

And most important, the musical program had enough highs to keep us attuned and enlightened. Last year’s Finnish parade held suitable appeal to head and heart, as did this year’s mostly British affair, with Sir Simon Rattle as the ever-flexible and amiable music director.

Two of the high points of this year’s British-intensive festival could have been predicted: Thomas Ades’ powerfully expressive orchestral piece, “Asyla,” and Mark-Anthony Turnage’s jazz-colored “Blood on the Floor,” which are both available to the consumer via fine recordings.

But hearing these works--which rely on improvisation and spatial qualities--in a live setting by fine musicians makes the canned experience pale by comparison.

The 28-year-old Ades, one of the most lauded young composers on the scene, won the coveted Grawemeyer Award this year, and his several works in Ojai proved what the fuss is all about.

“Asyla,” plural for “asylum,” is a fascinating sound world, occupying a position between avant-garde and romantic sensibilities. Critical tensions, including a dialogue between the loose clangor of percussion and the focused intensity of the other instruments, keep the work engaged and engaging. It’s all about color and gesture, toward strangely dramatic ends.

From the mysterious sense of circular descent in the slow second movement to the knotty schemes and rhythmic fervor of the third movement, “Ecstasio,” the work enchants on various levels, without ever falling into an easily pigeonholed category. This piece may, in fact, signal a new aesthetic from the rudderless uncertainty of the current compositional world.

Ades’ other music in Ojai also impressed--on a smaller scale--including a hypnotic, fragmented reworking of a John Dowland song, “Darkness Visible,” heard in Gloria Cheng’s piano recital.

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As it turned out, jazz made a notable appearance in Ojai this year, true to artistic director Ernest Fleischmann’s promise last year. In particular, the jazz-related showpiece “Blood on the Floor” was a gripping success, even clocking in at over 70 minutes. This is a true summit meeting between jazz and classical material, which can be risky artistic business.

But Turnage obviously loves and knows both. Here, a riser to stage right of the orchestra held the jazz troupers, led by the brave and bold drummer Peter Erskine and including saxophonist Martin Robertson, nimble bassist Dave Carpenter and guitarist Mike Miller, who did a fine job filling the shoes of John Scofield, so identifiable on the recording. But there was more: Turnage’s “Kai,” in Friday night’s opening concert (though there were two preliminary “Sundowner” concerts before it) is another piece steeped in jazz language and intention.

It sounds silly to report that cellist Ben Hong actually quoted the serpentine bop melody of Charlie Parker’s “Donna Lee” amid the more “legit” material, but Turnage’s jazz-classical weaving works disarmingly well.

Then, in Sunday morning’s concert, the inimitable sound of “free jazz” pioneer Ornette Coleman’s musical thinking hit Libbey Bowl. Coleman’s string quartet, “Poets and Writers,” in all its friendly, clattering glory, was a high point of a juicy concert by the FLUX Quartet, a young and willfully eclectic group from New York that seems poised for greater things.

Cheng, who has appeared in many contexts as a soloist and ensemble player in Ojai, gave her first recital here Saturday afternoon. She built the program around the music and influence of Messiaen (who was in Ojai several years ago), something she knows well, having recorded a respected CD of his music.

The high points included the detailed “Incises” of Messiaen student Pierre Boulez and Jonathan Harvey’s “Tombeau de Messiaen, for piano and tape,” which mixes pianos of the real and virtual sort into a blithe microtonal stew.

Frolicsome works by French composers countered the brainier British music, for comic relief. On Friday night, it was Ravel’s iridescent charmer of an operetta, “L’enfant et les sortileges (The Child and the Magic),” child’s play with universal appeal.

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Closing out the festival somewhat anticlimactically on Sunday evening was Poulenc’s absurd “Les mamelles de Tiresias (The Breasts of Tiresias),” based on the Apollinaire play. At least that concert was preceded by the compact, artful one-two punch of Ades’ “These Premises Are Alarmed” and the gushing expanse of Britten’s instrumental suite from his opera “Peter Grimes.”

Invariably, even in “off” years, the Ojai Festival, heading into its 55th year, with Esa-Pekka Salonen back in charge, provokes thought and offers valuable insights into contemporary music.

We’re now into a new era, with former L.A. Philharmonic head Fleischmann taking the reins as artistic director, and he has some clear ideas on how to evolve the festival. So far, so very good.

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Josef Woodard, who writes about art and music, can be reached by e-mail at joeinfo@aol.com.