(Left to right) Vallejo Symphony Orchestra President Susie Peterson, pianist Sara Davis Buechner and conductor Marc Taddei celebrate at a reception following VSO’s Oct. 30 concert. (Photo by Elizabeth Warnimont)

Vallejo Symphony guest soloist Sara Davis Buechner wowed her audience last Sunday in a stellar performance of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3, the second of three pieces comprising the symphony’s season-opening performance and the debut of its new music director, Marc Taddei, at the Hogan Auditorium in Vallejo.
Taddei led the orchestra in a stunning opener, Haydn’s Symphony No. 6, “Morning,” followed by the magnificent Prokofiev and concluding with Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5.
“This program launches a season that has a number of distinct links,” Taddei notes. Haydn’s “Morning” is the first of Haydn’s three time-of-day symphonies, each of which will be featured this season. The Prokofiev concerto is one of the season’s three modern Russian concerti, and Sunday’s third selection, the Sibelius symphony, belongs in the category of “masterpieces of the symphonic repertoire,” according to Taddei. The two other monuments chosen for that category in this season’s lineup are Beethoven’s 3rd, or “Eroica” Symphony, which Taddei says he considers “the most important symphony ever written,” and Tchaikovsky’s “Pathetique,” or 6th Symphony.
The orchestra sounded especially sharp Sunday, demonstrating the fine capabilities of its 2016 iteration which includes several new members who joined the organization since the time of Taddei’s predecessor, Maestro David Ramadanoff.
The Vallejo Symphony board of directors auditioned three conductors for the last, 2015-2016 season, inviting each candidate to lead one audition performance – so this was actually the second performance at the baton for Taddei, who resides in New Zealand and comes to California a few times each year to visit family – and now to rehearse with the Vallejo Symphony as well. If Sunday’s concert was any indication, then the board has made an excellent choice.
During Taddei’s “Meet the Music” talk, a feature offered one hour before each Vallejo Symphony performance, the conductor compared Haydn’s triptych of symphonies with his own current agenda. Whereas Haydn prepared the symphonies in 1761 for a new patron, Hungarian Prince Paul Anton Esterházy, Taddei similarly wished to prepare something extraordinary for his first season with Vallejo.
Taddei offered some interesting history surrounding the day’s selections, though his talk was weighted more on the technical aspects of the music, punctuated with numerous short audio clips. He noted, for example, that with the three time-of-day symphonies, Haydn wrote what he knew the musicians would enjoy playing, thereby ingratiating himself to the new ensemble of court musicians. The work contains many solo and section parts, for example, including bass solos and some intriguing bass-bassoon segments.
In the first movement of the Haydn symphony, slow crescendos and delicate flute and oboe sections introduce a gentle, spirited theme. The effect was lulling Sunday, slyly playing to relaxed ears while subtly but definitively planting seeds for the development to come.
In the second movement, violins begin to assert their voices in short solo segments interspersed with colorful accompaniment by various sections of the orchestra. The feeling grows to a happy, dancing tone including expressive measures from the celli. The symphony began to reveal its commendable precision and unity as the movement progressed Sunday.
The highlight in the third, minuet movement, for this listener, was the interplay of bass and bassoon, something that sounded quite new and thought-provoking while pleasantly harmonious. Finally, in the fourth, allegro movement, the lovely flute sounds, reminiscent of the opening passages, return with cheerful strings, concluding with a sense of supreme contentment.
The Prokofiev concerto started right off with some jaw-dropping licks on piano by soloist Buechner on a clear and rich-sounding Yamaha grand piano. All eyes were on the soloist for the initial passages, regardless of the fact that only later would the most impressive demonstrations of her virtuosity be displayed.
Prokofiev, Taddei had noted in his talk, also wrote this piece to “show what he could do,” in an effort to enthuse American audiences. The piece is fast and furious, with “spikier harmonies” than those in the Haydn work, and it finishes with a bang in a gratifying C Major key, the conductor explained.
The piano was brilliant, yet it seemed as if it were perhaps under-miked, as if in anticipation of the powerful execution demanded by the piece. At least for this listener, there was often a sense of wanting to somehow turn up the volume. On the other hand, the castanet parts, essential to the story of the piece as a whole, sounded distractingly loud each time they came into play.
Piano parts grow only more accelerated and pronounced in the succeeding movements, and Buechner mastered them in technique, timing and mood, keenly in touch with the timbre of the accompanying orchestra. While there may have been moments when the timing was even more askew than the piece calls for – it contains an inordinate amount of rhythmic dissonance by design – it would not have been remembered by this listener except for the mention of it among the musicians at the artist reception following the performance. Buechner’s masterful execution was absolutely phenomenal, in this writer’s opinion. The forceful moments were dramatic and powerful and the more tender measures were equally well, sensitively, expressed.
When I asked Buechner after the concert about people who influenced her and favorite composers, she came up with a few names but intimated that she conforms to the spirit of each work and really doesn’t have any “favorites.”
In response to multiple offerings of praise from the folks at the post-concert reception, the pianist tended to respond offhandedly. “We aim to please,” she quipped.
Sunday’s concert concluded with Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony, which Taddei noted contains a mysterious, frenzied buzzing and is punctuated with horns reminiscent of swans honking in flight, distinctly rich in sounds from nature. The swan theme, in fact, is perhaps the most notable aspect of the piece, fashioned after the composer’s experience while staying on a lake in Finland. He was inspired by the cries of the swans and cranes, Taddei told the audience, and those noises provide the height of tension in the composition. That theme of birdsong, if it may be called by such a sweet-sounding name, is frequently heard in popular music. “Coltrane used it,” Taddei added.
“On its face,” the conductor concluded, “it’s just a very romantic piece. But it has such an interesting structure, a cornerstone of early modernism.”
It is indeed rife with buzzing from the string sections, thankfully topped with distinct, affecting horn play in the opening movement. The strings rise up out of their monotony in an early crescendo, again iced with horns that are now stronger and brighter. As bassoon comes in, moaning softly over the din, the droning buzz is further softened.
To this listener, a distinct marching beat began to dominate in the second movement, developing alongside the pulse of the horns, until the piece ultimately culminated in a majestic cacophony just before concluding with a surprising moment of solemnity that bursts into its final, victorious finish – a satisfying end to a very buzzy musical experience.
Taddei’s opening performance as director of the Vallejo Symphony accomplished what he had hoped, delighting his audience with illustrious compositions executed by gifted and well practiced musicians. It left this listener eager to return, to hear the second part of this season’s themed program.
The next regular concert of the Vallejo Symphony takes place Sunday, Jan. 29, 2017. The featured soloist, cellist Zlatomir Fung, will perform Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, following Haydn’s “Noon” symphony and preceding the Eroica symphony by Beethoven.
Tickets are $40, $30 for seniors and $15 for students with id. For more information about the symphony season and VSO Presents chamber concerts, or to purchase tickets, visit the symphony’s website at vallejosymphony.org or call 643-4441.

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