Tag Archives: San Francisco Symphony

Esa-Pekka Salonen Meets the Firebird

May 24, 2025 – San Francisco Symphony at Davies Symphony Hall –

Esa-Pekka Salonen, Music Director of the SF Symphony, led the orchestra through a fascinating program: Chorale, by Magnus Lindberg; Violin Concerto, by Alban Berg; and The Firebird, by Igor Stravinsky. When Maestro Salonen entered the stage, the audience and the musicians stood to applaud him. It was very moving to see him, especially now, with only a few more concerts as the SF Symphony’ Music Director. The performance of The Firebird was an amazing celebration of his leadership.

Magnus Lindberg, composer (Born 1958 in Helsinki) Magnus Lindberg has been friends with Salonen since they were both students at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. His compositions can be complex; eventually, the works came to be assisted by a computer program he invented in order to create even higher complexities. Chorale was written in 2002 and premiered in 2002 conducted by Salonen with the Philharmonia Orchestra. It is 6 minutes long, with novel rhythms and inventive use of his instrumentation. Chorale was composed as a “companion piece” for Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto. The basis for the “companion” status is that both works use the Lutheran chorale, It is enough, which was set by Johann Sebastian Bach for his Cantata 60, O eternity, you word of thunder, long before.

Alban Berg, composer (1885 – 1935)

Deep emotion is not something most music lovers would identify with Berg’s works, but this Violin Concerto, written in 1935, has deep sadness in every note. An eighteen year old daughter of friends died from polio. Berg delighted the girl; she was the daughter of Alma Mahler Werfel and the famous architect, Walter Gropius. It is true, her mother was Gustav Mahler’s widow. When the score was finished, Berg wrote “To the Memory of an Angel” on the manuscript. Berg had adopted the 12-tone principles developed by Arnold Schoenberg. As the composition grew, Berg discovered that the opening notes of Bach’s Cantata No. 60 matched the closing four notes of his concerto’s tone row. Here are the words of the Cantata which also inspired Magnus Lindberg Chorale:

It is enough!/Lord, if it pleases you./Unshackle me at last. /My Jesus comes;/I bid the world goodnight./I travel to the heavenly home./I surely travel there in peace,/My troubles left below. It is enough! It is enough!

The Violin Concerto translates Manon Gropius’ pain and struggles into music. The second movement is frightening; one cannot avoid imagining the lovely girl knowing that she was dying. There are two harmonies that put forth the complete 12-tone row from the lowest to the highest. It reaches to three octaves higher. The violin does that, but the other instruments go so low as possible. A tragic event, Berg died of blood poisoning Christmas eve day. This was his only solo concerto. Isabelle Faust, solo violin, played with direct feeling and strength.

Igor Stravinsky, composer (1882 -1971)

Stravinsky’s The Firebird was a fabulous showpiece. Parisians who heard the premiere all reported that it knocked their socks off.
It was composed 1909-1910 and created the fame and style of Stravinsky. Serge Diaghilev, The Magnificent Impresario, with Michel Fokine, dancer-choreographer, the Ballet Russe, made Paris its home. They reached into Russian folk tales and came up with the Firebird and Kashchei the Deathless, a personification of evil. Three well known composers turned down the opportunity to make music for that. Stravinsky, who had only orchestrated Chopin piano pieces for Diaghilev, went for it. At age 27, his career going nowhere, Stravinsky stayed in St. Petersburg and composed. The meetings of Fokine and Stravinsky, improvising movement and music, must have been electric. Much of the music came from Russian folk tunes and, as written by Benjamin Pesetsky for the program notes, “even his harmonic sleights-of-hand and modern orchestrational wizardies don’t stray far from those of Rimsky-Korsakov.” The Firebird was good and the Kashchei was terrible; Stravinsky made happy music that one might be able to hum (for the Firebird) and dark harmonies that were bad (for Kashchei). Why not? The story ballet energized the music; the costumes brought color to the audience’s imagination. Act One brings the Dance of the Firebird. The violins, clarinets, and flutes play for the magical bird. Prince Ivan discovers thirteen princesses. The thirteen ballerinas dance a version of a khorovod, a Russian folkdance in a circle. Kashchei and his cronies kidnap the Prince. Kashchei must dance the Infernal Dance accompanied by timpani, brass, and xylophone. Good will win: the Firebird’s Lullaby, accompanied especially by the bassoon, shows peace can return. There is a wonderful horn solo before the entire orchestra brings powerful goodness. The audience was left to applaud and even shout out. Not quite a year after The Firebird, Stravinsky, having learned that ballet is the way, composed Petrushka using the vast array of percussion, rhythms, harps, everything. Last night’s performance had a glorious ending.

Conductor Dalia Stasevska: A Great Performance

San Francisco Symphony, Davies Symphony Hall, May 15, 2025 — Dalia Stasevska conducted the SFS through three wildly different pieces; all were played with excellence.

Dalia Stasevska, Conductor, chief conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and artistic director of the International Sibelius Festival.

Ralph Vaughn Williams, composer (1872 – 1858), England
Ralph Vaughn Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis opened the concert. Tallis ( ca.1505- 1585) was a 16th century composer. He provided music for three kings and one queen; starting with Henry VIII and ending with Queen Elizabeth I.

Thomas Tallis, composer (ca. 1505 – 1585), England) Ralph Vaughn Williams spent two years editing the English Hymnal. This turned his ear to the fine, sacred music of earlier times, and it influenced what he came to write. The music is delicate but still strong. In one part, it creates a sound like that of an ancient cathedral. It is only strings. Vaughn Williams divided the strings into differently sized groups. The music could be called “otherworldly.” It has the beauty we will never know except in this music. Thinking back to the 16th century, how can we do that. Thinking back to 1910 when it was composed, also another world. We are so fortunate to hear this and imagine.

Anna Thorvaldsdottir, composer (Born 1977, in Iceland)

Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Before we fall featured the cellist soloist, Johannes Moser. This was a world premiere of this SF Symphony commission. The title suggests the moments before the earth’s ecosystem collapses forever. The composer offers this explanation of her “core inspiration behind the cello concerto Before we fall centers around the notion of teetering on the edge, of balancing on the verge of a multitude of opposites. The musical structure flows between lyricism and a sense of distorted energy–two main forces that stabilize this entropic pull. Driven by the strong sense of lyricism that permeates the piece, the work also orbits a forward-moving energy that connects and balances the opposites in different ways.” The music was powerful and mysterious. There were novel ways of making music and putting the music into the rhythms. There were sticks hitting sticks making new music. The cellist worked strenuously, pressing the moments forward and sometimes pulling back. For this listener, it felt very cold although the sounds could become lyrical. The music is continual, not in movements and without a sense of finality; instead, we are surely balancing against forces beyond our time.

Jean Sibelius, composer (1865 – 1957), Finland

Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5 in E-flat major, Opus 82 closed the concert with astounding brilliance. What experiences there are in this great symphony! Sibelius was aiming at completing this symphony in time for his birthday. World War I had just begun as he began writing and revising the symphony. It was done in 1919 with the European world back to what would have to pass for stability and peace, for a while. When beginning his 5th, in 1914, Sibelius wrote “In a deep valley again. But I already begin to see dimly the mountain that I shall ascend….God opens His door for a moment and His orchestra plays the Fifth Symphony.” It opens with E-flat major which puts it into the company of Beethoven’s Eroica and the Emperor Concerto, all opening with an E-flat major chord, but this E-flat major belongs to Sibelius. He uses many diverse approaches: chords in crescendo, flutes and oboes, woodwinds blowing through. The audience sits up as the music gives nothing less than surprise; we must react. His rhythms cross over, a dance sings with rhythm, the brass introduces a scherzo, the orchestra repeats a call. Sibelius originally had four movements in the 5th, but changed it into three movements. His second movement has new sounds for rhythms; some are energetic, others are more calming. What will happen to those rhythmic themes? The finale movement takes off like a tornado whirling through space. Sibelius gives the audience amazing excitement, a lift off of woodwinds and cellos, dissonance, new melodies. There is such a rush that the final four chords make the eyes open wider. It is done, and we want to start again.

The conductor, Dalia Stasevska, was a star throughout the concert, and yet her physicality and attention was especially fantastic in this Sibelius masterpiece. The SFS rose to play on an even higher level – we thought they were already up there – and entirely with her in this great Symphony No. 5. Orchestra and Maestro were were thrilling.

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 making 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 this night.

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.

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.

Ray Chen & James Gaffigan at SF Symphony

The San Francisco Symphony presented a marvelous program January 9-11; this audience member, there on Jan. 9th, found all three works fascinating and performed at the top. The Sf Symphony musicians found the heart of each selection. It was a wonderful concert. Conductor James Gaffigan was superb. In 2006-2009, he was the associate conductor for the SFS. He is now the General Music Director of Komische Oper Berlin and Music Director of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Valencia. In addition, he conducts in music centers around the world. Jeremy Constant, Concertmaster of the Marin Symphony was the Acting Concertmaster and led the First Violins with excellent musicianship.

The curtain raiser was a brief work by Missy Mazzoli’s Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres). Commissioned by the LA Philharmonic, its debut was 2014, in Los Angeles. This was its first performance at Davies Symphony Hall. Worried that the music would try its best to make me wish for Mozart, instead I wished it had not stopped so soon. It was a piece of imagination made musical. Performed with traditional instruments, there were also unusual sources of sounds: harmonicas, opera gong, and, pre-recorded, lion’s roar, and boombox. They blended and together lifted me up into what might be something like Out There

Missy Mazzoli, composer

The astronauts now stuck in their space ship might wish to have a tape of it. Although they were supposed to come home to Earth, on June 5, 2024, the timing has not worked out. They now look forward to Earth in late March, 2025. Please Ms Mazzoli, write more musical theme “songs” for the astronauts.

Roy Chen, violinist

Violinist Ray Chen was the amazing soloist in Samuel Barber’s lyrical Violin Concerto, Opus14 (1940). This music is a heart full of emotion. Do not think of sentimental hearts; this concerto reminds the listeners of glory. Humans do get there sometimes, or they know can fly above. Ray Chen is a performer. He captures the stage, collaborates with each musician, and becomes at one with the Conductor. Ray Chen also has the charisma of a rock star. His technical abilities make the lyrical movements sound like truth, and his incredibly fast playing movements are just on the verge of super-human. Think Steph Curry: graceful, fast, absolutely on the point. It seems like magic, but it is human. After many bows, he gave us a suitably amazing encore. It was Eugene Ysaye’s Sonata, No. 2, “Obsession” (Prelude). The music began with an excerpt from Bach’s Partita No. 3 in E major for solo violin. Ysaye’ “obsession” with Bach led him to include quotes from the Bach Prelude. He also incorporates the “Dies Irae” of the Mass for the Dead. It was beautiful. Ysaye’s Sonata allows Mr. Chen to play something very special.

Samuel Barber, composer (1910-1981)

After the excitement of the Barber concerto, one hoped that the audience was ready for Prokofiev. When Maestro Gaffigan opened the program to tell us about what we would hear, he said that Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, Opus 100 (1944) was one of– or maybe he said it was his favorite symphony. I am a great fan of Prokofiev. This symphony has it all. It is big, powerful, monumental but still musical in every way. He builds a world of music. Gaffigan took the opportunity for the SFS to play with everything: finesse, delicacy, bold gestures, and loud loud music. It was written during the war. On June 6, 1944, the Americans landed on Normandy beaches. Later in 1944, Russian forces broke into German territory. Prokofiev conducted the premiere of No. 5 at Moscow, 1945. He could hear artillery and explosions; he waited for the noises of war, and then started. Prokofiev felt hopeful and wrote about No. 5: “I conceived of it as glorifying the grandeur of the human spirit, praising the free and happy man—his strength, his generosity, and the purity of his soul.” Historically, the years that followed did not show humankind achieving its greatest character. Let’s hold on to Prokofiev’s moment feeling “the grandeur” of humanity and hope that Prokofiev could hold on to it, too.

Shostakovich & Brahms: Amazing Performance

The San Francisco Symphony performed the Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1, in A minor, Opus 77(99) and the Brahms Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Opus 98, October 5, at the Davies Symphony Hall. This listener is still standing to applaud it was such great music performed majestically. Music Director, Esa-Pekka Salonen, conducted with strength and understanding of masterpieces of two great composers

Dmitri Shostakovich, composer (1906 – 1975)
From the very first sound from the violin, my whole being straightened up in attention to the exquisite music made by one draw of bow across instrument. Sayaka Shoji, the soloist, plays the “Recamier” Stradivarius violin, ca. 1729, loaned to her by Ueno Fine Chemicals Industry, Ltd. The violin may have been played by other outstanding musicians, but I believe it had been waiting four centuries for its ideal partner, Ms Shoji. Shostakovich made this concerto a marathon challenge for the violinist. She performs continuously. She must run a rocky path and up a steep mountain, something like climbing Half Dome. There is a small sign requiring the violinist to meditate; she climbs high enough to bring the music to stillness but never to a stop. There are moments she shares with a flute and a clarinet both supporting her pilgrimage. If you love Shostakovich’s music, and I do, this is a profound message. It is alive with the philosophical melody of the first movement, Nocturne. The Scherzo contains the composer’s laughs at a dictator’s cruelty. Folk dance is suggested, but it is not for jolly folk. It is rough and creepy. The third movement, Passacaglia, blossoms into nine variations led by the horns and more wind instruments. Their wind blows through each variation turning into a funeral call. Ms Shoji’s cadenza has a wild sadness and brings more of the folk dance back onto the stage as though the energetic dancers are crazed by loss. From the cadenza the music pours into rousing bagpipe sounds and a non-stop party of all the musicians, folks, and roaming strangers, a revel of jumping, running, and celebrating joy in this moment.

Johannes Brahms, composer, (1833 – 1897)

Brahms. The long wait for him to produce his first symphony is a familiar story. He terrorized himself thinking of Beethoven following him, intimidating his writing. He began making notes and sketches in 1850, but the tremendous, glorious Symphony No. 1 debuted in 1876. His Symphony No. 4 was a triumph and the last of his symphonies. The performance by SF Symphony, October 5, led by Esa-Pekka Salonen, affected the listener’s heart while emotion was spoken by beautiful, quiet, lyrical passages, Allegro non troppo. Behind the first movement, and behind each movement, there is always something that cannot be named: a texture, interactions of instruments, a thought for the world. Brahms was a great intellect as well as a great musician. His writing found ways to allow us to hear the music with all our attention and yet be aware that there is something we will never see. In his writing, he broke some classical ways. In the program’s essay,, the late, wonderful writer Michael Steinberg explains how a seemingly small step changed every thing. “Almost everyone was upset over what appears now one of the most wonderful strokes in the work, the place where Brahms seems to make the conventional, classical repeat of the exposition but changes one chord after eight measures, thereby opening undreamed-of harmonic horizons….” This must be what a master of the technique as well as of the sound can do. “One small step” could change everything. Then, it is like breathing, something also easy, complicated, and brilliant. Brahms mines the Baroque and Renaissance music for something new, inspired by Bach’s Cantata No. 150. He did not try to do “authentic” ancient music; he discovered how he could understand it and then do it but differently. The entire symphony is full of energy even when the music is quiet. Passion drives the music, but it never colors outside the lines. Great and true passion lets us learn many possibilities and unifies the world.

A Romantic Program: Schumann & Bruckner

June 21, 2024: Do not be upset. I know that Bruckner is not labelled a Romantic composer, but he gave his Symphony No. 4 in E-flat major, Romantic. the name “the Romantic” after he completed it. Schumann, was a Romantic in his music and his life. His Piano Concerto in A minor, Opus 54 was his only piano concerto, but it is a perfect one. Why are these two composers on the same program? Each one created a change in the art. Schumann’s significant change is a new way to make a concerto. Bruckner made lasting changes in the development of symphonic movements. There are stories behind each innovation.

Robert Schumann, composer (1810 -1856)

THE COMPOSER

He looks so troubled in this picture. For a long time I have felt that Schumann did not get enough attention in our modern and/or post-modern era. Very unfair. As you see in his dates, he lived only 46 years. Mozart and Mendelssohn both died before they reached 40. Sadly, that is one of the facts people will note. Surely, Mozart and Mendelssohn deserve every possible praise, but the brevity of their lives, and of Schumann’s, should be on some kind of celestial list. And Schumann spent the last part of his life in an asylum. He fell in love with Clara Wieck, widely recognized as the great concert pianist of Europe. To complete the romantic story, her father would not allow them to marry. However, they married anyway. She continued to perform, to teach, and to compose. Her work supported the family. She had eight children. She performed her husband’s music and would listen to the new works. Schumann was very intelligent in other arenas, too. He founded a journal, the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, in 1834, and wrote for it and edited it for ten years. He had studied law at Leipzig and Heidelberg, but he was a musician. Music and Clara were his life.

His Piano Concerto in A minor, Opus 54 was something new. He began a work he called Phantasie, in 1827. In 1839, he published an essay about piano concertos in the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik. He did not like the existing concerto form of the orchestra and soloist being separated mainly to show off the virtuoso piano performance. He imagined more interaction of the orchestra and soloist making the music together.

Clara Schumann, pianist, composer, wife of Robert Schumann (1819 – 1896).

THE CONCERTO

Schumann wrote that “the orchestra, no longer a mere spectator, may interweave its manifold facets into the scene.” He wrote four more attempts at the new concerto, but they were only attempts. Clara played the piece and declared the Phantasie good. “The piano is most skillfully interwoven with the orchestra; it is impossible to think of one without the other.” Schumann was not there yet. It did not get published; Schumann felt something was missing. Schumann revised the Phantasie in 1845, making it a three movement concerto. It may not be the most challenging concerto, but he brought together orchestra and soloist together to make music. It is an act of beauty. The “interwoven” sources of the music also weave a spell for the listener.

Yefim Bronfman, Pianist

The San Francisco Symphony, led by Music Director, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and the soloist, Yefim Bronfman, made the music play above merely wonderful. Schumann would be happy to know how seamlessly the music came through the team work of all. When the piano introduces itself at the beginning, the oboe and bassoon present the theme. Schumann made the work without the usual orchestra and soloist’s separate excitement. The idea of connecting the roles of soloist and orchestra is present throughout. Schumann himself wrote the piano’s cadenza, and it is glorious. None of the orchestra’s instruments is lost. The first violins swell as the piano presents a second theme. A solo clarinet is heard clearly over the quiet playing of the strings. This concerto shows what is created when every instrument’s character plays itself and is part of the company as well as having its own, individual, musical life. There is little one might write about Yefim Bronfman. His performance was beyond extravagant superlatives. He plays the soul of the music. There are places in the Concerto when the piano is delicate, almost quiet, small. Those moments were some of the biggest experiences of the Concerto. The audience could not let him go. There were, maybe, six encores. After the first two or three, Bronfman played a Rachmaninoff piece, Prelude in G minor (op. 23 no. 5), it had unique rhythms and a changing pattern. Fascinating and strange. The audience carried on applauding and shouting bravos until a few at a time gradually trickled to the exits.

Anton Bruckner, composer, organist 1824-1996

THE SYMPHONY

The SF Symphony led by Music Director, Esa-Pekka Salonen, gave a powerful and insightful performance of Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 in E-flat major, Romantic. The orchestra represented Bruckner’s unique approach to every note. This is a great symphony in every sense of the word; the music is marvelous and the symphony is a long one. Bruckner gives the listener new sounds and new roles for particular instruments. There are dissonant notes and momentary rests. They are surprising. Then, the listener realizes that these novel aspects are part of Bruckner’s mystery. Here is a master of orchestration and counterpoint who knows the use of an out of the way path wins the music lover’s attention. The Symphony No. 4 has musical references to hunting in its Scherzo and other movements. The horns are the stars of this Symphony. One can picture the “nobility” riding through a forest. This is part of the Romanticism that was sweeping across Europe. Movements develop slowly; there will be a change to lively dance music; then a wistful encounter of characters. Bruckner must have surprised himself so much as his audiences were surprised when, long after the Symphony’s debut, he wrote a note of what images could float before one’s eyes:

“Medieval city- dawn-morning calls sound from the towers-the gates open-on proud steeds the knights ride into the open-woodland magic embraces them-forest murmurs-bird songs-and thuse the Romantic picture unfolds.”*

There are more wind instruments playing music that does suggest the natural world awakening, and, through the grandeur of the Symphony, there are suggestions of folk music. Bruckner’s view is broad as though he looks across all directions for the vast earth, brooks, and trees and stretches his musical vision to encompass the living world and even beyond. He takes our breaths away in a dazzling finale that draws together darkness and distant light.

THE COMPOSER

Bruckner’s life could have followed his father’s and grandfather’s paths as a schoolmaster and organist in the Austrian village of Ansfelden When his father died, his mother took him to St. Florian’s, a monastery-school. Bruckner’s attachment to St. Florian’s lasted throughout his life. He began teaching music at St. Florian’s soon after his education there ended. Before St. Florian’s he had music education through his father and, when his father was ill, Anton played the organ in the church. He spent ten years on St. Florian’s music faculty. He left to live in Linz, 1856, and began to write seriously. There was a popular song for male-voice chorus, “Germanenzug,” 1863; Psalm LX11, for soloists, chorus, and orchestra, 1863; Symphony in F minor, his first symphony, 1863; a great Mass in D major, his first mass, 1864. Beginning in 1855, he studied counterpoint and harmony with Simon Sechter. Bruckner felt he was not sufficiently prepared for composing. Sechter was considered the best teacher, and Bruckner spent six years studying with him although Sechter was in Vienna and Bruckner in Linz. Then, he took up the study of orchestration and musical form from Otto Kitzler, also considered the best teacher in these areas. Assigning himself to these studies reveals Bruckner’s hunger for learning and perfectionist tendencies.

Life in Linz was obviously more stimulating for Bruckner than his previous home. In Linz, he wrote two more symphonies; one in D minor -called Zero Symphony – and Symphony #1 in C minor. He wrote two great Masses: one in E minor, 1866; and one in F minor, 1867-1868. The E minor mass kept to strict polyphonic style for an 8 part chorus and brass instruments. The F minor established a new kind of “symphonic mass,” for orchestra and chorus.

If Linz was a helpful atmosphere for him, when Bruckner moved to Vienna, 1868, he began a period of creative production. He had been studying his music theory lessons and still taught music and played the organ. It was a hard working life. When he arrived in Vienna, he was able to succeed Sechter’s position as professor of harmony and counterpoint at the Vienna Conservatory and had private students. The University of Vienna gave him a position in their faculty, too. Before Vienna, he had had a nervous breakdown. Overwork or something physical? There is no answer, except that Vienna gave him so much more. All his training and work opened the door to important positions. Starting in 1868, he was the court chapel organist, and from 1875 onward he was Vice Librarian and Second Singing Master for the choristers. These positions lack lofty names, but they added to his financial security and visibility.

Bruckner saw Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman and Tannhauser, in Linz, and traveled to Munich to see Tristan and Isolde. He met Wagner in 1865 and became a Wagnerian. This placed him in the midst of battles between followers of Wagner and those who preferred Brahms. Some leading critics, especially Eduard Hanslick, made it difficult for Bruckner’s work to get the approval and attention needed to move his work forward.HNe toured as an organist. He performed in Paris and Nancy, 1869, and London, 1871, performing at the Crystal Palace exhibiton five times. His virtuoso organ playing and his improvisation on the organ fascinated audiences. It is said that his improvisations were spectacular. Later he made journeys within Germany: Leipzig, Munich, and Berlin were frequent venues. There were also conductors who were enthusiastic about his music. These were Nikisch, Levi, Mottl, Mahler, and Ochs. His symphonies and masses were greeted with admiration or dislike, again because of the politics of Wagner vs. Brahms. Mahler especially supported Bruckner’s work. He made the first pianoforte arrangement of Symphony No. 3 and conducted the first performance of Symphony No. 6, in 1899.

Anton Bruckner’s made changes that contributed to the development of symphonies. As he was a dedicated student of orchestration, harmony, counterpoint, the changes will mean the most to musicians and students, but the changes affect what an audience hears. (A) he introduced a third subject in the exposition. (B) A tendency to telescope development and recapitulation which make the movement split into 2 main parts. This is most noticeable in the first and fourth movements of his Symphony No. 9. (C) shifting the power center to a finale which can end with repetition of the main themes of early movements (D) linking movements by shared themes as in Adagio and Scherzo in Symphony No. 5 and Scherzo and Finale of Symphony No. 4.

These innovations stepped away from the classical forms of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Bruckner broadened the possibilities of great symphonies.

*Quotation taken from SFS program note by james M. Keller.