<div>Camerata Pacifica‘s October program, played four times, includes Kazuo Fukushima’s “Mei, for Solo Flute” (1962); Sergei Rachmaninov‘s “Six Moments Musicaux, Opus 16” (1896); Igor Stravinsky‘s “Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet” (1918); and Arnold Schoenberg‘s “Chamber Symphony No. 1, Opus 9” (1906; arr. Anton Webern, 1923). The pieces will be performed by Cameratans Yoobin Son (flute), Jose Franch-Ballester (clarinet), Alena Hove (violin), Ani Aznavoorian (cello), and Irina Zahharenkova (piano). Like most Camerata programs, this one sent me scurrying to my shelf of reference volumes, and, of course, to Google and YouTube.Of the 10 or so online sources I consulted, all informed me that Kazuo Fukushima (1930-2023) was an autodidact; that is to say he was “a completely self-taught composer and musicologist.” In 1953, he joined the Jikken Kobo (Experimental Workshop), where he met and became friends with Toru Takemitsu. Fukushima became one of the first, if not the very first, Japanese composer who became known to Western audiences. Most of the sources used the word “meditative” to describe his music, and it definitely applies to “Mei.” The notes come separately, placed with deliberate precision, like the ritual actions of the Japanese tea ceremony, or a very fastidious butler setting a table. The contrast with the Stravinsky pieces could not be starker, in that “Mei” never actually moves, while the three clarinet pieces are never still. What we might call Schoenberg’s “day job” was as orchestrator or arranger of other, lesser composers’ works. He was very good at it, and learned a lot about the orchestra in the process. He famously transcribed Brahms‘ “First Piano Quartet” as a symphony, insisting he was honoring Brahms’ original intention (and making a damned persuasive case of it, too). As a didactic exercise, he often set his students to making arrangements of other composers’ works, including his own. Both Alban Berg and Anton Webern, at their mentor’s urging, made arrangements of his Opus 9 “Chamber Symphony” — Berg, in 1914, for two pianos; Webern, between 1922 and 1923, for violin, flute, clarinet, cello, and piano (the same scoring as “Pierrot Lunaire,” for which the arrangement was intended as a companion piece). It will be fun to hear it, the “Chamber Symphony” being, with Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” one of the cornerstones of 20th century music. The program plays at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 25 at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara; 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 27 in Scherr Forum, Thousand Oaks; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 29 at The Huntington in San Marino; and 8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 30 at the Colburn School, Los Angeles.Tickets to all venues are $35 and $75, and they can be purchased by phone at 805-884-8410, or online at https://cameratapacifica.org/concerts-24-25/. </div>

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Gerald Carpenter: Camerata Plays Fukushima, Rachmaninov and More

Camerata Pacifica‘s October program, played four times, includes Kazuo Fukushima’s “Mei, for Solo Flute” (1962); Sergei Rachmaninov‘s “Six Moments Musicaux, Opus 16” (1896); Igor Stravinsky‘s “Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet” (1918); and Arnold Schoenberg‘s “Chamber Symphony No. 1, Opus 9” (1906; arr. Anton Webern, 1923).

Gerald Carpenter: Camerata Plays Fukushima, Rachmaninov and More

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