MUSIC REVIEW: ISABEL BAYRAKDARIAN AT HERBST
Joshua Kosman, jkosman@sfchronicle.com

San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, October 6, 2008
USA

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many conservatory-trained
composers turned to their native folk traditions for inspiration,
collecting songs and dance melodies from the countryside and recasting
them in classical form. Bartok is the best-known example, but another
was the Armenian priest Gomidas Vartabed, whose music formed the
centerpiece of Saturday night’s transfixing recital by soprano Isabel
Bayrakdarian.

During the years before and after 1900, Gomidas (whose name is
sometimes transliterated as Komitas) assembled a large body of
traditional Armenian songs and arranged them for choir or solo voice
with piano accompaniment. They cover the gamut of folk expression,
from lullabies and love songs to moody reveries and vivacious jokes,
and to the unfamiliar listener they sound both comfortable and strange.

Bayrakdarian, the brilliant Armenian Canadian singer who has shone
here in music by Mahler, Handel and Jake Heggie, has made a project
of Gomidas’ songs in partnership with her husband, pianist Serouj
Kradjian. Saturday’s program, presented in Herbst Theatre by San
Francisco Performances, was a wondrous showcase for singer and
composer alike.

Accompanying Bayrakdarian was the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, an
excellent string ensemble conducted with crispiness and verve by Anne
Manson. Kradjian was on hand as a piano soloist for some numbers,
and Hampic Djabourian played the duduk, a traditional Armenian
double-reed instrument whose deep, mellow sound is like that of a
bassoon on Quaaludes.

But the evening’s main focus was Bayrakdarian herself, whose vivid,
dark-hued tone and sumptuous phrasing imbued every piece of music with
warmth and urgency. Her singing reached great heights of oratorical
splendor when necessary, but the simplicity of some of the more
straightforward songs was equally touching.

What’s striking about this material is how unpredictably the musical
elements go in and out of sync with Western expectations. Some of the
numbers, like the tiny "Song of the Partridge," are uncomplicated
ditties that draw on the same tonal harmonies of any European folk
song. Others venture off into distinctive melodic scales, as in the
"Lullaby," or unusual metric patterns, as in "Without a Home."

Kradjian’s arrangements of the songs for string orchestra are superbly
resourceful – sometimes answering the music’s twists and turns
with surprises of his own, sometimes content to serve as backdrop
to Bayrakdarian’s lustrous vocal turns. In one of the more overtly
dramatic songs, "The Crane," he inserted an eloquent solo for the
concertmaster, beautifully delivered by violinist Karl Stobbe.

Gomidas’ music represented the main body of work on the
program, but there were other offerings too that complemented it
nicely. Bayrakdarian delivered a majestic account of Ravel’s "Two
Hebrew Melodies," and Manson led the orchestra in three handsomely
varied sets of ethnomusicological dances.

Bartok’s "Romanian Folk Dances," arranged by Arthur Willner, led
off the evening in a spirited reading. They were followed later by a
set of "Greek Dances" by Nikos Skalkottas and, after intermission,
by the central movement of Gideon Klein’s "Partita for Strings"
(an arrangement of his String Trio), which is based on a Moravian
folk song.