Frankenstein: Run to It!

You may have seen Frankenstein movies; the Frankenstein ballet is better. Nothing against Boris Karloff, the Monster (or Creature); he was so good in the 1931 movie that the story goes on and on. Before I tell readers more, I advise you to get tickets now. Frankenstein’s last day and night is May 4th. Week day tickets are available now at half price.

Go to this link: https://www.sfballet.org/productions/frankenstein-encore/

The most important aspects of this ballet are the wonderful performances. I saw it with Dores Andre as Elizabeth Lavenza, Victor’s fiancee; Max Cauthorn as Victor Frankenstein, the aspiring scientist; Nathaniel Remez as The Creature; Alexis Francisco Valdes as Henry Clerval, Victor’s best friend; Julia Rowe as Justine Moritz, when Victor and Elizabeth were young, Justine was a playful friend, but she had a tragic future. The entire company danced so well it is difficult to describe the feats they achieved. They had intensity as well as technique; theater skills that lifted them out of any staginess; lifts and jumps that were real though they seem unreal.

Jasmine Jimison as Elizabeth & Cavan Conley as The Creature, FRANKENSTEIN ballet by Liam Scarlett performed by SF Ballet, photo Lindsey Rallo

The choreographer of all this, Liam Scarlett, devised a way for a lift to go higher. The ballerina is lifted by the danseur; he catches her up from a jump; she makes a second jump into the air from his arms. I write that it is a second jump, but to jump one normally pushes off from the floor – or from something. Here, the ballerina engages her energy and ascends. Does the partner toss her up again? Maybe. Ballerinas are strong and equally brave as they are strong. That’s it.

The ballet has two amazing pas de deux for the leads. They dance together when they decide they will marry. It was lovely and did not hide their emotions. The elegant turning into each other and sometimes away from each other was continually inventive and beautifully executed.

Another pas de deux happens when Victor has lost The Creature. He is anxious and preoccupied. Elizabeth tries to calm him with some of the steps from their previous pas de deux, but they cannot get back to the Before The Creature feelings.

There are choreographic motivations demonstrated by Scarlett. Throughout the ballet, there are movements that look straight out of modern dance technique. This ballet has a full range of emotions, and basics of modern dance show emotion. If a person pulls her/his abdomen in and lets the contraction move the back into a curve, the onlooker will see pain or sorrow. Changes of direction are dramatic: What should I do? Is there someone to turn to? Scarlett has many ways to move large groups. In the ballet, there are people in a tavern. They are excited and questioning what is going on. That scene has thirteen dancers, including Victor. Scarlett differentiates these dancers: how do they stand, what do they do to look over a table, they break into separate directions or focus at the same spot. The ball to celebrate Victor’s and Elizabeth’s marriage features a large gathering of dancers. The couples dance filling most of the stage: Then, there are more dancers dancing closer and closer to each other in complex designs. In addition to the designs the dancers make, their designs, dancing so closely, and then more quickly; it becomes frightening.

Aaron Robison in Scarlett’s Frankenstein // © Lindsay Thomas

The music composed by Lowell Liebermann fits every turn in the plot and the changes in the characters. Victor goes from tremendous joy at succeeding creating a new life from pieces of other bodies to feelings of guilt and terror. The music underscores the work of Scenic & Costume designer John McFarlane. There are gorgeous sets in the Frankenstein mansion, the frightening fight with the Creator in the garden, and the dreadful execution of innocent Justine.I was especially glad to see appropriate costumes for the story’s era. It is late 18thc., around the time of the American Revolution. Think of Ben Franklin and his experiments with a kite and electricity. The Lighting by David Finn told the story just as much as the dance and music. It will surprise you.

San Francisco Ballet in Scarlett’s Frankenstein // © Lindsay Thomas

As the choreographer passed away, the ballet was staged by Lauren Strongin and Joseph Walsh; Walsh danced the role of Victor during this run.

The story is based on the book written by Mary Shelley, the wife of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, author of The Rights of Women, and William Godwin, philosopher and writer. One night, in 1818, near Geneva, she was with friends during a great storm. Fall out from a volcano eruption half way around the world made the world dark for days. They decided they should each write a scary story. Mary’s was Frankenstein. The science at the time sought more knowledge about electricity. There was philosophical debate and curiosity about what is life.

Cavan Conley as The Creature & Esteban Hernandez as Victor in Frankenstein ballet by Liam Scarlett performed by SF Ballet, photo LIndsey Rallo

In the ballet’s Act I, scene 2, Victor’s mother dies. She was pregnant, fell to the floor, disappeared, but gave birth to Victor’s baby brother. That is a way of creating life. Victor wants to create life from body parts from the dead. He rejoices that the electricity he masters can create life, too. The Creature wants Victor to make another creature to be his partner. He learned to read – not explained much in the ballet – and learned that Victor wrote in his journal that his experiment had failed. The Creature became angry; he wanted love, but could he love?

The extraordinary, but real, Nathaniel Remez could not have been made. This other way of creating life is compared with Victor’s mother’s death and his brother’s birth. Remez performed majestically. He became the sad/angry Creature without love. His presence on stage was that of The Creature who killed the whole family, but Nathaniel Remez’s human beauty is not from AI.

Photos courtesy of San Francisco Ballet

LOVE FEST FOR MTT

LOVE FEST FOR MTT: April 26, 2025

San Francisco knows how to throw a Love Fest. For Michael Tilson Thomas’s 80^th birthday, nothing better than the best of the best could do. MTT, as he is called, is now Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra, and co-founder and artistic director laureate of the New World Symphony. He has won 12 Grammy Awards and conducted all the major orchestras in Europe and the US. However, San Francisco thinks of MTT as ours. His active participation in the life of the SF Symphony and through that his treating the City as home; that’s why the completely packed Davies Symphony Hall, even in the partial view seats, started teary and smiling and sharing stories before the concert began. San Francisco loves MTT, and we believe he loves us, too.

MTT has been living with a brain tumor. Still, he has come back to conduct first twice a year and then once a year. If you are wondering how he could conduct, his ability to conduct is still there. No question. What is gone is the physicality of his former conducting. There were the jumps, the great reach to the roof, both arms crossing together from left to right and then indicating one section or player with his baton. Oh, there were also the deep knee bends. He danced with force.

The first time MTT conducted the SF Symphony they played Mahler’s 9^th. He became the Music Director in 1995. We need to remember that MTT’s Mahler concerts were so well known and admired that MAHLER was written on the side of Muni Buses.

Mayor Daniel Lurie names this day, MTT day, and awards him for the whole city.

MTT conducted two lengthy pieces, one at the beginning of the birthday program and another at the end. The opening was Benjamin Britten’s, Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell, Opus 34 (1946). It is also called The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. While it might have educational aspects, it is, as Michael Steinberg wrote, “the work is very much worth playing for its sheer musical pleasure.” The music’s theme comes from Purcell’s revival of Abdelazar, or the Moor’s Revenge, a play by Aphra Behn. The music first identifies one section of instruments – maybe strings or percussion and the others. Then, Britten puts the orchestra back together in a fugue; he has themes for each section. The instruments play them one at a time and then together. It is happy, playful music which is not at all superficial; it brings music that bows and smiles. Wonderful choice.

Benjamin Britten, composer (1913 – 1974)

MTT also conducted Overture from Khantshe in Amerike, by Joseph Rumshinsky (arr. MTT), a composer originally from Lithuania and then lived in New York. He came to the US in 1904 because Boris Thomashefsky, MTT’s grandfather, asked him to come. Rumshinsky aided the Yiddish Theater and created it as a source of fine operettas. MTT produced The Thomashevskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater. Its premiere was at Carnegie Hall, 2005. I was thrilled to be in the audience for his presentation of The Thomashevskys on the Davies Symphony Hall stage. It was fun and touching with MTT’s music and music from the early 20thc.

Sasha Cooke, mezzo soprano
The next section of the celebration presented seven songs, five of them by MTT. Of the two that were not his were Claude Debussy’s La flute de Pan from Chansons de Bilitis (1897), sung by Frederica von Stade, mezzo soprano, John Wilson at the piano. Frank Loesser’s Take Back Your Mink, from Guys and Dolls (1950). The singers were stars. Three of them, Ben Jones, tenor; Jessica Vosk; and Sasha Cooke, mezzo soprano, got their career starts with help from MTT. Frederica von Stade and MTT have worked together since 1970. In Take Back Your Mink, the SF Symphony Chorus women added lively singing, dancing, and swinging somethings not mink. MTT’s songs are tender, sometimes ironically funny, personal in ways that most everyone thinks. The titles tell it: “Not Everyone Thinks That I’m Beautiful” (1985); “Drift Off to Sleep” (1982); Answered Prayers, 1974. The songs were a special way to know more of MTT. Unlike some other conductors who write music, Michael Tilson Thomas very rarely put his own work on an SFS program; it was his songs I most wanted to hear.

The after intermission concert started with a beautiful MTT song titled “Grace.” (1988) Sasha Cooke and Frederica von Stade gave the song thoughtfulness and shading of emotions. Very lovely. John Wilson on piano. The SFS Chorus, directed by Jenny Wong, reached into the heart of the music by Leonard Bernstein, the Finale from Chichester Psalms (1965). As Bernstein and MTT were good friends, it was the right selection for this birthday.

Leonard Bernstein in 1973. (Photo by Allan Warren/Creative Commons)

One more terrific, long piece to close the show; it was MTT conducting Roman Festivals (1928), by Ottorino Respighi. The movements are four festivals. Each one has a different energy and a different sound, rhythm, character. I had never heard it before and enjoyed it very much. The different movements included: Games at the Circus Maximus, The Jubilee, The October Festival, and The Epiphany.

Planning a program is an art. Our Maestro made wise choices for what he would conduct. Excellent music that might not be the “usual” thing, two long pieces which had interesting changes of emotion and rhythm, and, most of all, demonstrated that despite his condition, MTT, you’ve still got it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MTT!

Photos by Stefan Cohen, courtesy of SF Symphony

SF Symphony: Brahms & Shostakovich

Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, March 30 — This was a great program. Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D Major, Opus 77 and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Opus 93.

If you ever learn that Gil Shaham, violinist, is playing near you, someplace on this same planet, go to hear and see him. He was the guest soloist playing Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D major. He is a blissful musician and shares the bliss with his audience. As he played, he related to the conductor, Juraj Valcuha, and also turned toward the Concertmaster, Alexander (Sasha) Barantschik. It seemed that he wanted their experiences in the music to fit with each other so that they enjoyed making music together.

Gil Shaham, violinist, He performs regularly with the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Israel Philharmonic. He has multi-year residencies with Montreal Symphony, Stuttgart Philharmonic, Singapore Symphony.

The Concerto is something different in Brahms’ repertoire and new to the late19th century audience for serious music. “Normally,” in concerti of the era, the orchestra was a frame for the music made by the soloist. The soloist dominated the two-some. In this concerto, they are equals. It also offers new, off-center rhythms that made the listeners at the 1879 premiere decide it was a strange Brahms, as though he had heard wisps of this music from E.T. The first movement has a lovely, lyrical method to carry through changes from major to minor and the presence of Hungarian folk tunes folded into this Allegro non troppo. I remember it, even when there are surprising switches, as a deep and moving quiet, moving like a river, not entirely moving like an emotion. This is where an Adagio oboe melody drifts through gentle but never weak, winds. The violin brings more musical strife and then it all becomes calm, but never still. The finale, Allegro giocoso ma non troppo (happy but not too happy) is obviously demanding over-the-top technical brilliance. Shaham was in clover. It was not a bit challenging to him as the full audience were thrilled.

Johannes Brahms, composer (1833-1897) This is the first Violin Concerto he wrote. He was pounced on by writers and music lovers. What had he done? He had made a great piece with new sounds and rhythms which were not welcomed. The reception rattled him so much that he destroyed his second violin concerto and never wrote another. Occasionally, I hear the finale movement of the Violin Concerto in D major on the radio, but not the whole concerto. It is a rare jewel. Shaham, Valcuha, and the SF Symphony gave it the performance it deserves.

Dmitri Shostakovich, composer (1906-1975)

On one of my first visits to the San Francisco Symphony, I learned that they would not play anything by Shostakovich. It shocked me. The idea was that Shostakovich was a loyal Russian Communist, and therefore an enemy. Later, Leonard Slatkin was a guest conductor. He spoke to the audience and encouraged them to understand Shostakovich’s hunted life, and appreciate the greatness of his music. It surprises me now to note that some music writers still assume that Shostakovich was all about Communism and writing music that supported the current ideals. Some even treat the two times he had lost approval by Stalin’s regime was, “after all, only twice.” This is a great composer. He could not have his work performed. He could not work. He wrote for movies, and tried to be rehabilitated. He had to know that other artists had been sent to Siberia, which was a place to die, or, they were shot. When he was allowed to go to the US as an artist on display but with grim chaperones, he was reported to look like a prisoner speaking what he had to say. He was denounced by the authorities, lost his teaching positions, did not write between his Symphony No. 9, 1945, until the Symphony No. 10, 1953. What happened? Stalin died. So, the question about his Symphony No.10 in E minor, Opus 93 is whether the Symphony was specifically about Stalin. For myself, I think it is about Stalin, but not as a portrait of that dictator. The atmosphere, what there was to breathe, what to think, how not to think was all Stalin and his cohorts all the time. Shostakovich and other artists who lived in Stalin’s world had lives which were continually repressed by the entire regime. Shostakovich was there; his family and private life were constantly in danger.

Shostakovich at the piano

The Symphony opens with the cellos and basses. Moderato, it has a sound lying under the music; that sound says, “Be careful. You may be watched.” The strings carry the movement forward to language from solo instruments: a clarinet solo, a horn fills the music, more clarinet, and a flute accompanying plucking strings. The whole orchestra builds its very loud cries, and the music becomes even louder. Briefly, it sounds like an army. The movement ends with piccolo and timpani. The listener, becoming anxious, catches her breath, but still the eyes open wide in the quiet but ghostly end. The second movement is an Allegro, like a super fast scherzo. It is rushing to the edge of the moon. Is someone running away? Is a whole nation running after…what? It pushes the heart of the music. There is no moment to think; the strings play very, very quietly. The scherzo abruptly cuts itself off. The third movement has three styles: Allegretto – Lento – Allegretto. It is not so fast as the Allegro, but runs briskly. Then, there are slower moments and a return to the brisk movement. There is a teasing, lively mood that has that under lying, troubling, secret sound. The piccolo, flute, timpani, and triangle present a sardonic tone as the music marches on. The Symphony ends with Andante – Allegro beginning similarly to the first movement’s cellos and basses. A lovely oboe almost calms the music as once again the flute flies solo. Now, the wildness of the second movement becomes an energetic, klezmer. It is at last a joyful sound for all of us.

Barantschik, Nel, Wyrick Make Art at the Legion of Honor

March 23, 2025, Gunn Theater at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor – This trio of Alexander Barantschik, violin; Anton Nel, piano; Peter Wyrick, cello, always presents magnificent music, and they let the audience know how exciting their Chamber Music can be. Alphabetically, here they are:

Alexander Barantschik, violin, has been the Concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony since 2001. He was previously concertmaster of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic. He played in chamber music and as a soloist through Europe and toured with the LSO through Europe, Japan, and the US.

Anton Nel, pianist, tours as a recitalist, soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. He has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Seattle Symphony, and others. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 1994. He holds an endowed chair at the University of Texas at Austin and is on faculty at the Aspen and Ravinia Festivals. He is also a harpsichordist and fortepianist.

Peter Wyrick, cellist, joined the SF Symphony 1986-1989 and then returned as Associate Principal Cello, 1999-2023. He retired last season. He was principal cello for the Mostly Mozart Orchestra and associate principal cello for the New York City Opera. He played soloist with the SFS in music by C.P.E Bach, Leonard Bernstein, Haydn, Tan Dun’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. He has collaborated with Joshua Bell, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Yefim Bronfman and more.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, composer (1756-1791)

The program for the trio’s concert was superb. Three selections, each one was entirely different from the others except for the greatness of the music. Mozart’s Piano Trio in B-flat major, K. 502 opened the concert. it was exactly Mozart’s touch and holds an important role in the evolution of the piano trio. In the mid-1780s, Haydn and then Mozart moved to give each of the instruments its own importance; no longer a sonata which focuses on the violin and piano, leaving the cello in a lesser role. Although Mozart originally wrote “Sonata” on the work, he changed it to Terzett/Trio. This Trio was one of two which Mozart created in 1786. The first movement, Allegro, was led by the piano. The music was written to keep a lovely melody with a theme that builds as it offers new harmonies and lets the instruments weave the music through taking turns like a jump rope competition. The second and third movements are not shy. The Larghetto is quiet but does not hold back until it excites the finale Allegretto into new emotions and adornments.

Cecile Chaminade, composer, pianist (1857 – 1944)

After the Mozart trio, Anton Nel took the stage. Through the medium of the piano, he brought French composer, Cecile Chaminade, to life. Her music is full of rhythm, melody, well rounded sound that seemed to travel through the audience as though she was reaching every listener. Although she was gifted with musical talent, her father refused to let her attend the Paris Conservatory. She found a composer, Benjamin Godard, who would teach her privately. She wrote 400 pieces including symphonies, piano works, a concertino for flute, songs. Some critics, then and now, state that she could only produce minor works, small affairs that were popular. She sold her music on sheet music and piano rolls. She was popular in England and the USA. The criticism of her work was on her consistent creations that were Romantic, melodic, and in the groove of Faure and Saint-Saens. That she did not try to “advance” to Schoenberg or Stravinsky troubled some, but there already were Schoenberg and Stravinsky. Nel played two Chaminade works: Automne, Etude de concert, Opus 35, no. 2, and Theme varie, Opus 89. They were wonderful, making music that had energy, movement, and hidden, unspoken songs. It made this listener feel there was a drama within the music. It stirred the audience, all full of surprise. If anyone tells you it is not significant music, tell that person that President Theodore Roosevelt invited her to lunch, and they did lunch. Significant. A lot of Americans and the English were swept away by her. Listen.

Johannes Brahms, composer (1833 – 1897)

Brahms had a very successful vacation of three, summer months of 1886. He did not go there to hang out. He wrote the F-major Cello Sonata, A-major Violin Sonata, C-minor Piano Trio, C-minor Violin Sonata, and some songs. He used his time well. There was no TV. No movies. No baseball. He had a vacation which left him needing a vacation. The Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor, Opus 101 is big, dense, powerful music. He begins it with power. We are not easing into this experience. Boom; this Piano Trio is more like a symphony than chamber music. These three great musicians let the audience hear it like a symphony . He introduces a second theme featuring the violin and cello. It is balancing both the instruments and the themes; balance is important. Like a fine dancer, he does it because he can. At some point in his composing, he might have chosen to keep nothing extraneous out in the open. Instead, it is felt that there is more than one sees or hears. The second movement, Presto non assai, is light, transparent, a spider web in weight or movement in a direction impossible to know. Its delicacy is its strength. Then, he moves into an Andante grazioso. It could rub your nerves a bit the wrong way. It is lovely, but it makes the audience wonder why it makes one anxious. Is this grazioso as the name suggests? There is something about Brahms’ rhythms. There are three measures of 3/4 time and then two measures of 2/4 time. Brahms scholars observe that he engages his enjoyment of Hungarian rhythms in the music, and also that of a Serbian folk song. As he took his fascinating rhythm to the open air of Hofstetten, near Lake Thun in Switzerland, he might just try stepping in the rhythms on the edge of the mountains. That alone could be why he succeeds in mixing and matching these rhythms and then, having stayed upright, he gives us a happy ending. He dances on the edge.

SF Ballet Makes History: Raymonda & Frankenstein

Saturday, March 8, 2025, San Francisco War Memorial Opera House — The full house audience applauded through out the performance. They witnessed exciting, innovative, and challenging ballet in the North American Premiere of Raymonda, choreographed by Tamara Rojo, after Marius Petipa. The World Premiere of Rojo’s work was presented by the English National Ballet, London Coliseum, London, England, January 13, 2022. Rojo was the Artistic Director and Lead Principal of the English National Ballet. She was appointed Artistic Director of SFB, December, 2022. Marius Petipa’s technique and choreography could be said to have invented classical ballet. His Raymonda was made for the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, 1898, set to music by Glazunov. In Petipa’s work, the ballet was set in the medieval ages during the Crusades. Since Petipa’s time, this is the first Raymonda that presented the ballet and music in their entirety. That was a major step in ballet history,

San Francisco Ballet in Rojo’s Raymonda // © Lindsay Thomas

Rojo believes that companies and dancers must hold on to their legacy, the history of ballet and its choreography. She chose to set her new Raymonda in the Crimean War. One of England’s Prime Ministers said that if anyone tells you that he knows the reason for the war, he’s lying because it is impossible to figure out. England was on one side; Russia on the other. There were devastating diseases which killed at least so many as the guns killed. Rojo took advantage of the international character of the war. She incorporated classical dance with folk dance and dances of national identities. Vadim Sirotin directed the Character Dancing. I am certain that Rojo has endless variations of steps, combinations of large and small groups, the men dancing on their own, the women with the men or not; it was magical except that we knew Tamara Rojo was tapping into her bottomless mine of precious dances. She noted for all of us the importance of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing and of keeping records of statistics. During the war she was called “the lady of the lamp.” Rojo used lanterns as effective props for the Nurses’ dancing. The Crimean War was a sad prologue for the American Civil War, 1861 – 1865. Nursing was developed on the battle grounds and in tents by Clara Barton who also created a movement for better nursing. Yet another historical event: the Crimean War was the first time battles, places, and people were photographed. The Civil War also picked up the significant record of the horrors.

Fernando Carratalá Coloma in Rojo’s Raymonda // © Lindsay Thomas

Sasha De Sola and Joseph Caley in Rojo’s Raymonda // © Lindsay Thomas

Max Cauthorn presented another star performance. it was a gift to watch him again after his remarkable presence in Manon. Frances Chung danced Raymonda beautifully. She had a complicated character. She was a young lady from an upper class background who planned to marry John de Bryan. He joins the English army; she ponders the idea that she, too, should help her country. Then, Abdur Rahman, in photo above danced by Fernando Carratala Coloma, comes on the scene. John asks him to look out for Raymonda. What will she do? Both men would like to marry her, but she was promised to John. After battles and much marvelous dancing, the families gather for a wedding. Raymonda exerts her independence and leaves the wedding to find her own future. The SFB danced so well they lived up to the fabulous dances Rojo made for them.

FRANKENSTEIN: Runs March 20 – 26 Frankenstein was choreographed by Liam Scarlett with music by Lowell Liebermann. It was last performed by SFB in 2018. “Haunting music, pyrotechnics,” and a powerful story make this another outstanding offering by SFB. Tamara Rojo wrote that it “explores humanity and hubris, amplifying the existential, gothic drama in a way only ballet can go.” It is still Women’s History month. If one thinks that there may be only one female character, please remember that the author was Mary Shelley. She published it in 1818. She was married to Percy Bysshe Shelley, the great Romantic, English poet. Her mother was Mary Wollstonecraft, the author of the Vindication of the Rights for Women. Mary Shelley was with Shelley and Lord Bryon near Geneva. They decided they each would make a ghostly story to read to each other. Of the creative stories, it is Mary’s which has stayed in our culture. They had to stay inside because the air was dark with ashes from a volcano across the world. They called it the year with no summer. That era was a time of electricity experiments and experiments with life. Mary had a deep understanding of new science and how it was changing everything. The SF Ballet will present an ENCORE! of FRANKENSTEIN, April 26-May 4.

Beethoven & Rachmaninoff: Breathtaking

Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, Sunday, March 2 — Experiencing this performance took the audience into the world and the center of human life. Not magic, as someone might say, but the beauty and energy of real life swept us away. The music: Piano Concerto No.4 in G Major, Opus 58, by Ludwig Van Beethoven; Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, Opus 27, by Sergei Rachmaninoff. The beauty would make one tingle. Another note about the music is how much each composer knows about being alive.

Ludwig Van Beethoven, pianist and composer (1770 – 1827)

The soloist, Francesco Piemontesi, brought the music’s soul to Davies Hall. I have a recording of this Piano Concerto and listen to it frequently. A recording can never match being there and hearing the live music in person, but now I cannot imagine another pianist playing with the same understanding, delicacy, and power. Piemontesi demonstrated that a soft sound can be powerful. Robin Ticciati was the conductor. He and Piemontesi were on the same wave length with regard to both the feeling and technique. The orchestra performed well on all levels. The musicians were perfect partners in this strange and beautiful concerto. The piano sounded like water running smoothly over polished rocks. The key to this concerto is the very first note. The soloist begins. The pianist played that first note in a way that said, “This is what I am, what I will be, what you can feel. One note.” I felt it touched me, made my throat close, my eyes momentarily almost in tears. No reason why, except that Beethoven created a unique Piano Concerto that offers a journey through lush sounds in the quietest way he could. He let the Concerto tell us the message.

Francesco Piemontesi, pianist The audience went appropriately wild after more bows. His encore was gorgeous. J.S. Bach’s Chorale Prelude, Sleepers, Awake/Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme 645, transcribed for piano by Ferruccio Busoni, 1898. Piemontesi played the piece so that it sounded like he had two more hands. Some of that is thanks to Busoni, but it could only been played that way by a great pianist. Francesco Piemontesi is a great pianist. These performances are his first at San Francisco. This season, he will perform with the Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic. He will perform with Robin Ticciati with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and tours with the London Philharmonic. And more.

Robin Ticciati, Conductor has been music director of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, since 2017. He is also the Music Director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera since 2014. He has conducted the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, London Symphony, Czech Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and many more in Europe and the US. His San Francisco debut was January, 2023. I admired his conducting tremendously. His directions are clear and strong. His arms open high and wide to include the sound world, and he uses his natural grace, going into a grande plie or on his toes, to signal where the music should go. I liked to see his movements as they confirm that music is something real that can move mountains and human hearts, too.

Sergei Rachmaninoff pianist and composer ( 1873 – 1943)

The Symphony No.2 in E minor, Opus 27 is so beautiful that the self-appointed Modernists could not admit it is great music, but it is. They called it new or semi or whatever before Romantic. Rachmaninoff’s music is original. He has his own voice and style; expansively it includes the fullest experience and ideas. It is sensual and magnificent. When the first movement began, I thought, “Oh, he is taking us into a mystery.” Later, I read that Michael Steinberg commented that it begins “in mystery, with pianissimo low strings.” The Symphony No. 2 is about 55 minutes long. It has to be big to be so full of all its love and life. The composer leads us through the Symphony’s world. The first movement is marked Largo-Allegro moderato, and it covers slow and rhythmic, melodies in motion. The second movement, Allegro molto, is wilder. There are tunes that Rachmaninoff, also a composer of songs, flies through. There is a fugue in the second violins and then a scherzo-like drama that Rachmaninoff lets loose. Steinberg knew that the composer liked to enter notes of the Dies irae from the Gregorian Mass for the Dead. But that is not the idea of the Adagio that comes next. It is about love. “Now hear this;” The music tells the story of love; it does not need to speak. There is still more mystery in the next movement. Each instrument plays: English horn and oboe and then each of the others. The clarinet returns to the melody at the beginning. Having begun the Finale with the Symphony’s quiet, now it turns on the music rushing like a water fall. Rachmaninoff ‘s lyricism thrills the ending with wide world embraces.

Muzik, Prokofiev, Stravinsky: Anxiety Meets Beauty

San Francisco, Davies Symphony Hall, Feb. 23 — An exciting program of new music, it opened with Strange Beasts, by Xavier Muzik. His work was a SF Symphony Commission and World Premiere. Muzik was the 2023 winner of the Michael Morgan Prize from the Emerging Black Composers Project of the SF Symphony and SF Conservatory of Music. The music was interesting; in the words of the composer, “intentionally organized, narrative in structure, and harmonically rich.”

While the orchestral music kept playing, photographs also by Muzik were projected on a screen above the stage. The composer described the Strange Beasts as the giant buildings in Los Angeles, maybe a park or two. The pictures were shown upside down and right side up, or shown repeatedly in fast percussive blips. For Muzik, the giant buildings reminded him of Godzilla. Watching the photos, I had trouble focusing on the music. I respect the composer’s decision to have both arts make “a dance,” as he wrote. I would like to hear the music again so I could better experience the sounds. He said that the pandemic lock down increased his anxiety and led him to recognize his anxiety while walking below the Strange Beasts. His original music helped the audience sense his and our anxiety.

Sergei Prokofie, composer (1891 – 1953)

Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2, in G minor, Opus 16 is stunning in its newness. It could have been composed yesterday, though it was composed 1912-1913. Prokofiev was only 22 years old when he created it. Sadly, the complete score was destroyed in a fire during the 1917 Russian Revolution. The composer reconstructed the Concerto using piano pages. Prokofiev wrote, “It was so completely rewritten…it might almost be considered No. 4.” He had written No. 3 in 1921. Prokofiev used the opportunity to make the rewritten version even more complex “in its contrapuntal fabric,” as he described it. This piano concerto has the distinction of being the most difficult piano Concerto. It is said that Martha Argerich refused to play it, Kissin put off learning it, and even Prokofiev, always an above first rate pianist, had difficulties in the 1930s performing with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. It had “gone out of his fingers.” The first movement is surprising with the melody and its extensions, a variety of colors, and a cadenza which is probably bigger than in any other concerto. The second movement, Scherzo dares the soloist to present the 16th notes fast enough. At this point, I whispered, “This is anxiety.” The Concerto’s nerves and anxiety are contagious. Prokofiev wrote this magnificent Concerto in a world of trauma. There was the 1905 Russian Revolution which interrupted his study at the St. Petersburg Conservatory; World War I, 1914-1919; two revolutions in Russia, 1917-1922; World War II. In addition, he was being denounced under Stalin. There is something in this Concerto that whirls and jumps even in the quieter movements in the center of the work. The music is wild, nearly primitive, unsettling to the audience. I sat on the edge of my seat the whole time, thrilled.

Daniil Trifonov, pianist

Daniil Trifonov was incredible. The Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 2 suited him just right. He was on top of the challenging speed of the Scherzo and the touching, lyrical moments of the Andantino. The Finale was musical and brave. What a triumph for Trifonov, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and the entire SF Symphony. The audience called him back for more and more bows. Trifonov gave a beautiful encore: Prokofiev’s Gavotte from Cinderella, Op. 95, No.2

Igor Stravinsky, composer (1882 – 1971) with Vaslav Nijinsky, Danseur Noble, Choreographer (1889 or 1890 – 1950), Nijinsky is in his costume for Petrouchka (1911).

The Rite of Spring caused a riot at the Theatre des Champs Elysees. The 1913 premiere of this strange music and the mysterious ballet brings to life its ancient, maybe pre-historic story. Vaslav Nijinsky choreographed the dance. Some would stay and be enveloped by the actions and story. Others would not walk out; instead the audience would shout and curse and turn over chairs. Nijinsky’s genius for expressive movement brought new movements that represented the ancient folk stories. Much of the music originated in authentic folk music. The opening bassoon music has roots in a Lithuanian folk tune.

Igor Stravinsky conducting.

For readers who are not familiar with the tale of The Rite of Spring, here is a brief summary. First Part: Adoration of the Earth It is a celebration of spring time. There are pipers playing, fortune tellers, and an old woman who knows the future. Young girls have been in a river. Their faces are painted. They begin spring time dances. Wise old men come in a procession. Games and dances stop. All join in to a dance that blesses the Earth; and all become one with Earth. Second Part: The Great Sacrifice Virgins walk in circles, play secretive games. One is singled out to be the victim. She is pointed out twice while the circle walking continues. She is honored by the other young women. She sacrifices herself in front of the old men. There is The Great Sacrifice.

It is strange that this ancient folk story is the medium for new music and new dancing. I learned about The Rite of Spring when I was about ten years old. My mother told me about Nijinsky and the Ballet Russes. She was a wonderful dancer. I do not remember when I saw the ballet and heard the music. However, it bothered me deeply that a young girl would be sacrificed. I do not think I would have joined the riot in 1913; I would be fascinated by the movement and the strange bassoon song. I can hear it now as I type. The natural and modern movement captured me. Maybe I would adopt the movements on top of the ballet classes. I would also learn an ancient chant: Votes for Women.

Yuja Wang & Esa-Pekka Salonen: A Wonderful Concert

These two musical artists lit up Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, February 13. The program featured Debussy’s three works of Images pour orchestre, Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, and the SF premiere of Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Piano Concerto No. 1, Opus 45. Wang performed both concerti with power and her intimate knowledge of playing the piano. This program appears four times; it demands strength and excellence. Maestro Salonen, leading the SF Symphony, provides all the necessities brilliantly. There are two more performances: Tonight, Saturday, Feb. 15, 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 16, 2:00. These are wonderful concerts with thrilling music and artists.

Esa-Pekka Salonen, Music Director, San Francisco Symphony

Debussy’s Images pour orchestre are three separate pieces that Debussy created from 1905-1912. They are presented in varying order. This program opened with Gigues from Images pour orchestre (1912) followed by Rondes de printemps (1905). Ronde was the first part he created; it suggested the idea of the parts. The third part, Iberia, closed the whole program. Each piece is inspired by Debussy’s idea of three countries: England for Gigues, inspired in part by a folk song, “The Keel Row;” France for Ronde de printemps; Iberia for Spain. Gigues and Ronde were fascinating. Each is eight minutes. The title, Images, fits because Debussy was very taken by the French Impressionist painters. His work also is engaged in aural suggestions of Pierrot, the theater’s sad clown. The Images may recall characteristics of these countries, but these works are imaginative and circulate one’s experiences and memories. I would hear and see them again right now if I could.

Yuja Wang, pianist

The Piano Concerto in D major for the Left Hand, was composed by Maurice Ravel, 1929-30, specifically for Paul Wittgenstein. Ravel entered World War I hoping to be a pilot, but due to his age and health, he was a supply driver. Pianist Paul Wittgenstein had recently made his solo debut before the war. He had been “called up” by the Austro-Hungarian Army and scouted Russian positions. He was shot in his elbow; doctors amputated his right hand. While in the hospital, the Russians raided the hospital and took everyone there as a prisoner of war. He was sent on the long journey to Omsk, Siberia where there was a POW hospital. He began to try to re-train the fingers of his left hand by drawing a keyboard to drill his fingers. He was moved to a hotel that had an upright piano, but luck changed. He was moved to a horrible place in the gulag. It was so terrible that Dostoevsky made it the scene for his novel, The House of the Dead. Wittgestein was in a prisoner exchange that took him back to Vienna.

Maurice Ravel, composer (1875-1937)

Wittgestein commissioned Ravel for a Concerto, but Wittgenstein “had issues” about the finished piece. After lengthy disputes, Wittgen stein finally recognized Ravel had composed a great work. Yuja Wang played brilliantly. One could see the physical challenge of the music. Yuja Wang balanced herself by having her right hand hold on to the right side of the bench and also by grasping the piano’s top. The Concerto is very athletic for the pianist. Ravel said, “even a single hand can create layers of sound and both melody and accompaniment at the same time.” Ravel was a jazz fan, and this Concerto shows his understanding of Jazz sounds and rhythms. He said, “After a first part in {a} traditional style, a sudden change occurs and the jazz music begins. Only later does it become evident that this jazz music is really built on the same theme as the opening part.” Wittgenstein, realizing his good fortune to have this Concerto in his repertory, played it in concerts everywhere, including with the San Francisco Symphony, 1946. Watching Yuja Wang play this makes one realize the physicality needed to make music. She is ready for Olympic gold. Fascinating to watch, and listening to her playing in person is a great reward for the audience.

Einojuhani Rautavaara, composer (1928-2016)

Rautavaara was the most famous Finnish composer when he passed away relatively recently. He studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. He said that he was not a piano prodigy, but “with no personal contact with music as yet, I painted ‘music’ on paper in watercolors.” He received a master’s degree from the Academy and Sibelius chose him to win the study grant honoring Sibelius’ 90th birthday. He used the grant to study with Roger Sessions and Aaron Copland, in 1955 and 1956. He continued studies at Julliard and in Europe. He was interested in all the serious music trends, including 12 tone serialism. He composed eight symphonies and forty other orchestral works. His Piano Concerto No. 1, Opus 45 (1969) opened his eyes to alternatives to the most fashionable styles. He leaned into neo-Romanticism in his own style. “I was disappointed…with the then fashionable ‘ascetic’ –and to my mind anemic –piano style, and i wanted in my concerto to restore the entire rich grandeur of the instrument, to write a concerto ‘in the grand style.'” Yuja Wang was the right person to present the grand style. The Concerto needs a strong technique and deep understanding of the music. There were many physical performance requirements. The pianist had to use her whole lower arm to make the sound of all those notes at the same time. Her hands had to jump over each other. It was a powerful Concerto with a powerful artist bringing it to an excited audience. Yuja Wang was cheered into encores: Etude No. 6, by Philip Glass. The audience went wild again. The second encore was Danzon No. 2, by Arturo Marquez. Ms Wang is a great personality in addition to a fabulous performer.

Music Director Salonen closed this wonderful program with SF Symphony playing Debussy’s third part of the Images pour orchestre, iberia. The impressionistic music wafted around the hall. It has Spain’s light, colors, an atmosphere of people dancing a sevillana in the town’s plaza. The music suggests visual experience in the music. The scent of a place Debussy had never seen surrounded us in his imagination.

Note: Quotations of Ravel are from Benjamin Pesetsky article SF Symphony program. Quotation from Rautavaara are from James M. Keller article in SF Symphony program.

Shostakovich & Mahler: Amazing Music

February 6, 2025 – Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco – The San Francisco Symphony took giant steps into the music of Dmitri Shostakovich and Gustav Mahler. All efforts were successful and rewarded; the audience held its breath, stood to show appreciation, could not have been more excited by the music. The master composers of the 20th century sometimes shocked the music world with their new approaches to classical music: dissonance, layering of sounds, all with incredible virtuosity. Paavo Jarvi, conductor, led the SF Symphony through fresh, interpretive ideas for the playing of Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major, Opus 102 (1957) and Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 in E minor (1905).

Paavo Jarvi, conductor, winner Grammy Award for recording of Sibelius’ cantatas with the Estonian National Symphony, Grammaphone and Diapason Artist of the Year, Commandeur de L’Ordre des Arts et Lettres awarded by French Ministry of Culture.

Dmitri Shostakovich, composer (1906-1975)

Shostakovich wrote the Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major, Opus 102 for his son. Maxim wanted to appear as a soloist in order to help him enter the Moscow Conservatory. He had studied piano and conducting. Maxim asked his father repeatedly to write something for him to perform. Shostakovich at last produced this Concerto. Maxim’s solo was a success; he was admitted to the Conservatory. The Concerto was neither abandoned nor left only for youthful pianists. The father adopted this Concerto into his own concerto repertory and played it himself.

The piano soloist has the opportunity to show every possible piano technique one could have learned or which Shostakovich seems to have invented. Here is just one as described by James M. Keller, Program Annotator of SFS: “holding long notes and tracing melodies with separate fingers of a single hand.” I was there and heard it, but I cannot envision it. The composer has more up his sleeves: abrupt changes of meter, one from 2/4 to an unbalanced 7/8 and then breaking it down to multiple meters. The first and third movements were Allegro with the third much faster. The second movement, Andante, was a look back to the Romanticism of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. Its beauties made the quick, quirky, challenges to the pianist all the more exciting and dramatic.

Kirill Gerstein, pianist

Kirill Gerstein was the soloist. He was fascinating to watch and hear. Very fast, great coordination of arms, hands, and individual fingers. A fabulous performance. Gerstein’s world premiere recording of Thomas Ades’ Piano Concerto with theBoston Philharmonic received the 2020 Gramophone Award. Kirill Gerstein, pianist; he performed Rachmaninoff’s Melodie, Op. 3, No. 3 as an encore on February 6. The audience was thrilled by the performance.

Gustav Mahler, composer (1860 – 1911)

Mahler. Each of his symphonies is a whole world of actions, thoughts, cow bells, rustic dancers, military marches, desperate reaches for truth. Mahler said that he had started Symphony No. 7 from its middle, and that the whole would be symmetrical. Movements are balanced; there are two Nachtmusik movements. The The first movement is an Allegro moderato-Molto moderato (Andante). Nachtmusiks are in between the Slow-Allegro that opens the Symphony and the Scherzo: Schattenhaft (Like a shadow). We hear a very beautiful theme. The violin plays with elan. There are marches. A march becomes something else, something hidden until a wonderful lyric breaks through. The music is heard as a night time march. Cowbells break in surrounded by a sort of jump off a cliff in the strings section; the tam-tam and cymbals come in until the ‘cello sings alone. The Scherzo is ghostly. Drums and strings quarrel about their places. The Scherzo gives up as though its fabric frayed. The second Nachtmusik presents heartbeats and passion, a love song at night. Strangely, the guitar and mandolin make music that carries beyond the orchestral sounds. They are sad and lonely.The Finale charges with drums and slight references to Beethoven and Brahms. The Beethoven influence in Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 is not a quotation but a visiting cousin. Wagner’s Die Meistersinger seems to drift through, again not a quote just a suggestion of – this is a surprise – Wagner’s humor. It seems to me that the idea of Wagner’s humor is hilarious on its own. The symphony is triumphant. We are in nature and a part of nature. Drums return to remind us of the daylight, the thumping dancers, the gorgeous theme from earlier movements. Mahler will not let us down. He has so many ideas of the theme that he can offer them in layers or rearranging them or finding new sounds within them. He lets go of control; the sun shines. We are here.

Maestro Blomstedt Gives Us Schubert & Brahms

January 30 – Davies Symphony Hall – Herbert Blomstedt conducted the San Francisco Symphony in the Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, D. 485, by Franz Schubert (1816) and Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Opus 68, by Johannes Brahms (1855-76). When I hear the great music played by the SFS, conducted by Herbert Blomstedt, I feel that I know what the music was composed to be from every sound. Maestro Blomstedt’s authority comes from his deep knowledge of every step in the music. He leads the musicians into the world of the music. There is no ego that others might flash for their interpretations of the composers’ musical ideas or other ideas put upon the music. His strength and honesty makes the audience realize she is experiencing the truth.

Herbert Blomstedt, Conductor, photo by Jonathan Clark

Schubert’s Symphony No. 5 opens a lovely spring time. Listening to this Symphony gives the audience and orchestra the full experience: walking among flowering trees, hearing water move, enjoying the sunshine which is not going to burn. It is a model of the graceful moments in nature and in our human nature. There is no down side to the physical presence we see on our walk. The music is light but not slight. Of the four movements, only one is not Allegro. Serious music does not require tragedy. To experience this music one can recall a garden or imagine the Garden. It is a gift.

Franz Schubert, Composer (1797 – 1828)

The San Francisco Symphony performed majestically in both symphonies. Maestro Blomstedt found ways to pour the right energy in for these disparate emotions and music. Often it seems that comments on Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 are mostly about how long it took to materialize. An expert commentator calls it “burly.” I do not think that is 100% fitting. What is burly? Yesterday I saw pictures of a grizzly bear with her cub. Later, the grizzly bear was run down by a vehicle. The cub was orphaned. These bears are bigger than humans and will protect their young. “Burly” is not adequate for the bears either. The first movement comes forward without any dodges; not wasting time working up to being Big. It is powerful, beautiful, and alarming. This is an entrance of the earth; massive storms, floods, giant trees, mountains. Brahms may have needed 14 years to become the Brahms who pulled the Symphony No. 1 out of all he learned while composing other great works. He was inspired by his own work, and it is something only Brahms could do. It is all new. it starts and will not let go until all of it can exist. When I hear the sudden switch to the glorious theme, I cry. I do not know why that happens. Having the opportunity to see Herbert Blomstedt back stage, I asked him, “what makes me cry exactly at that moment?” He thought for a second and told me: “It is a revelation.” That is it. A vision. A perfection.

Johannes Brahms, Composer (1833 – 1897)

Maestro Blomstedt was Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony, chief conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra, and music director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. He has conducted at Copenhagen, Stockholm, Dresden, and the Bamberg Symphony and the NHK Symphony Orchestra. All of these honored him as Conductor Laureate. He has been given honorary doctorates, was elected to membership in the Royal Swedish Music Academy and was awarded the German Great Cross of Merit with Star. He continues to lead orchestras around the world.

His San Francisco audience cheered him and applauded without pause.