How America Sounds Today

There’s a distinct contemporary American accent to the annual summer music festival in La Jolla this year. SummerFest music director Cho-Liang (Jimmy) Lin has programmed two world premieres--John Harbison’s Quartet No. 4 and Esa-Pekka Salonen’s “Lachen Verlernt” (Laughing Unlearned).

He’s also invited those two composers plus composer John Adams to participate in SummerFest, which runs Wednesday through Aug. 18.

“Audiences will be captivated by what great stuff is being written today,” Lin said. “There’s a broad spectrum of American music, if you can count Salonen as some sort of American. There’s nothing boring about it.”

In addition to healthy doses of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, Lin wants audiences to hear American music and also get a chance to hear the composers discuss their works. So he’s scheduled a lot of pre-concert lectures, workshops and open rehearsals,

“I personally would have loved to have had the opportunity to talk with Beethoven and Brahms, to glean insights into interpretations of their music,” he said. “The open rehearsals will be guided tours through the music, so audiences worried about understanding something in one hearing will have a chance to hear a person explain it beforehand.” Lin was speaking from Santa Fe, N.M., where the violinist was playing in that city’s annual summer chamber music festival.

John Harbison isn’t reluctant to talk about his music. But he is cautious. “I get a little more accurate idea of it after it’s been around for a while,” he said recently from his summer home in Wisconsin.

“There was a program note I wrote for one of my pieces, but it doesn’t seem to have much to do with the piece a few years after. I find it’s easier to revise the program note than to revise the piece.”

It’s not that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. It’s the process. “In writing a piece, there’s the distraction of how you go about it,” he said. “Sometimes an idea is difficult to execute, how you want it to sound. When you’re writing it, you’re interested in how you do it; now I’ve gotten smart enough to keep my mouth shut about. But you don’t always have a clear sense of why you wanted to do it.”

His Quartet No. 4, to be played Saturday in Sherwood Auditorium at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, has three commissioners: SummerFest, which asked the composer to write a piece for the Orion String Quartet, which will be featured at La Jolla; the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, in honor of its 30th anniversary; and the Caramoor (N.Y.) Center for Music and Arts Inc. SummerFest gets the premiere.

It’s in four movements and lasts about 20 minutes.

“I was thinking of a dialogue or a dramatic action that carries through the piece,” the composer said. “With quartet writing, what I want to do these days is bring some of the way operatic characters relate into the world of chamber music--to get some of the dialogue or dueting capabilities that Mozart exploits.”

It helps that he knows the playing of the Orion String Quartet both as a group--he was on the composition faculty at the summer Aspen (Colo.) Music Festival, where the quarter has appeared regularly--and as individuals over the years. “It opens up some possibilities and it closes off others, both of which are helpful.

“I have a clear sense of what goes on when they play. There’s this very individual style. It’s the way they communicate with each other. Just even the physical aspect of the way they organize their ensemble. Just the signals that they give to each other. All of that is something you can’t get from a tape.”

This is his fourth, but not last, quartet. “I leave time between them so that the approach will change in a natural way. Any place where you work in the same medium a lot, you have the benefit of knowing things you don’t want to do and some that you haven’t done before.

“I’m certainly not finished with the medium. But I would have more to say about this work in 10 years.”

Lin has collaborated with Salonen numerous times. When they were planning the Aug. 10 concert--Salonen will conduct Stravinsky’s “Histoire du Soldat” and his own “Five Images After Sappho”--Lin learned that Salonen had always wanted to write a solo violin piece for him.

“He had these sketches around for quite a long time,” Lin said. “This would be an opportunity to put them together.” So they will open the program with the world premiere of Salonen’s “Lachen Verlernt,” commissioned by SummerFest.

The program, with choreography for Stravinsky’s “Histoire” by San Diegan John Malashock, will be repeated by the same forces at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre on Aug. 12.

Salonen was on vacation and could not be reached for comment.

The score was delivered to Lin in New York last weekend.

“You can see the coherence in the piece right away,” Lin said.

“You can see the density of the music gradually increasing; he builds very strongly. The pace also builds, like variations tend to do. It becomes more dramatic and chordal. So far, though, I don’t seen anything that’s finger-twisting.

“Now what I’m going to do is look at all the technical aspects because my first and primary job is to make the piece sound good. As soon as I identify the technical hurdles, the next thing to look at is the structure, then the finer details of expression.

“That’s the great thing about working with a living composer. If you have questions, you can ask him. Why does he call it ‘Lachen Verlernt’?” the music director continues. “What’s the implied emotional concept? That will be the most fascinating part about interpreting the piece.

“Now I have to figure out how to pronounce the name of the work. That’s the only difficulty.”

Lin will also be able to talk to composer John Adams, who will be conducting his music on the concerts Friday and Aug. 9 concerts. Of the other living American composers--Richard Danielpour, Michael Daugherty, Scott Wheeler--only Robert Kapilow will be at SummerFest. (Samuel Barber is also on the festival program.)

“Every year,” Lin said, “I look for new compositions to play and program. If I can showcase California musicians, it’s quite appropriate for La Jolla. They’re all very different; it’s important to hear what a fantastically huge range of colors and styles American composers are using today.”

This year, he said, “I was pretty lucky to persuade three such eminent composers to come by.”

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SUMMERFEST LA JOLLA 2002. Dates: Wednesday-Aug. 18. The first concert is Friday in Sherwood Auditorium at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, 700 Prospect St., La Jolla. Prices: $40-$50. Phone: (858) 459-3728.

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Chris Pasles is a Times staff writer.