Tag Archives: San Franciso Symphony

3 Composers PLUS Great Conductor & Pianist

San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall welcomed stellar artists and amazing music, 11/6 -11/8. The SF Symphony made a performance to remember with the outstanding pianist, Alexandre Kantorow, and the conductor, Karina Canellakis. Both truly blew us away. In the last season, her audience was thrilled by the unity and inspiration that she and the SF Symphony experienced together. Kantorow has presented world wide audiences astounding performances. He is the first French pianist to win the gold medal at the International Tchaikovsky Competition along with the Grand Prix.

Conductor Karina Canellakis with SF Symphony

Antonin Dvorak, composer (1841 – 1904)

Scherzo capriccioso, Opus 66 has the name of a light-hearted, even playful music, but this is not. Written in 1883, Dvorak’s mother had died recently and three of his children had passed away during earlier years. There is a darkness behind the sunny music. This piece was written before his time in America, 1892 – 1895. He was devoted to Bohemia’s music and wanted to let his home be heard by Czech and German audiences. He asked his publisher to put the title page in both languages. Dvorak told him, “I just wanted to tell you that an artist too has a fatherland in which he must also have a firm faith and which he must love.” The composer wisely allowed both audiences to feel the music was their own. The piece is only 12 minutes long, but Dvorak knew what he wanted to keep. The opening has a mood that could be anxious; it has starts and stops. The music is always fascinating: which way will it go? There is a waltz that may be sweet but ironic. The slow middle plays seriously before the English horn and clarinet perform a beautiful passage. The two instruments alternate playing the lovely melody. The final part of the  brings in special parts for horns and the harp. The entire orchestra, called by a solo horn, perform what might be a happy, all notes running as though at a picnic. However, the on and off rhythms and repetitions still let us guess what is in Dvorak’s heart. It is a marvelous piece played with knowing understanding.

Sergei Prokofiev, composer (1891 – 1953)

Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Opus 26, helped launch Prokofiev’s works in America. The composer did not fall in love with the USA. His first visit was in 1918. The Spanish ‘flu was killing many. He had come for a 4 month tour but stayed for nearly 2 years. 1918: the Russian Revolution, World War I, and the ‘flu. A dangerous time. Prokofiev’s work seemed too edgy to the Americans. The modernist music put off potential audiences. Serge Koussevitzky, a Russian conductor, became the conductor of the Boston Symphony, starting in 1924. He was a supporter for Prokofiev’s work. In 1918, Frederick Stock, conductor of the Chicago Symphony,  heard Prokofiev’s music and liked it so much that Chicago hosted Prokofiev 5 times beginning in 1921 with the premiere of the Piano Concerto No. 3. The music of this Concerto is an exciting roller coaster. The energy comes from a mix of neoclassical, modernist, and traditional styles. There are often so many things happening that there is no point in keeping one’s ears in enjoying the castanets or the piano flying through unusual syncopation variations. The music seems to take on sounds that are played simultaneously but from different directions. The orchestra and piano challenge the differences and hear all of them as one majestic piece. It is the bassoons that bring on the piano and create a back and forth race to the end. It would need hearing again in order to analyze the music: What is doing what to which phrase or instrument? Yet the music is so exciting it is more than worth hearing it again. Prokofiev was the foremost pianist in the St. Petersburg Conservatory. It is appropriate to have Alexandre Kantorow step into Prokofiev’s pianist life. Kantorow played Liszt’s transcription of Wagner’s Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde as his encore.

Pianist Alexandre Kantorow and Conductor Karina Canellakis with the SF Symphony

Jean Sibelius wrote the Four Legends from the Kalevala, Opus 22 (1896) when he was becoming interested in the Finnish epic, the Kalevala. In his childhood, he spoke Swedish. Finland was controlled by Sweden and then became a grand duchy ruled by Russia. He did not learn Finnish language until his mother put him in a Finnish speaking school. He was around 11 years old. He began to adopt Finnish music, folktales, and Finnish culture when he moved to Vienna. His friend and future wife, Aino Jarnefelt, wrote to him in Finnish; he would respond in Swedish. In a letter he stated that he would reply in Swedish “so that it does not take five minutes to write out each word.” This was the era in which authors, composers, scientists, historians were seeking their communities’ identities through folk tales and music. The hero of these tales is  Lemminkainen. The 4 legends are: Leminkainen and the Maidens of the Island, the hero lands on an island with many young women all of whom he seduces. Then the island’s men return and the hero must leave; The Swan of Tuonela, the Swan swims in the waters of Tuonela, the place of the dead; Lemminkainen in Tuonela, the hero is taken into the water and killed. His mother comes to Tuonela to bring him home and give him life; Lemminkainen’s Return, the hero’s mother brings him home, puts the pieces together with special honey, and he is whole. He goes to Pohjola for revenge, but the mistress of Pohjola puts frost over the water, his boat, and all his crew. The hero keeps the Frost away, though he and his companion have to go home by walking on the ice. Some of the instants remind one of Ulysses’ adventures and other creatures which might do him in. The music is beautiful. Sibelius began the parts of the Legends in 1893, but started over. He made a new work of the Swan of Tuonela. He revised it in 1939; the 4 pieces were published in 1954. Each legend has its own environment in sound. The Swan of Tuonela has a sad English horn over the strings. There are 17 parts. The third and fourth ending display the battles, struggles, and homeward travel. Without the story, it is still deeply moving and beautiful. Sibelius reaches into the rhythms of the epic poetry and the sounds of language turned into gorgeous music.

Please note: Photos are by Brittany Hosea-Small by courtesy of SF Symphony. Quotation from Sibelius is taken from the SF Symphony program notes found by Alicia Mastromonaco.

 

 

 

 

 

Photos by Brittany Hosea-Small, by courtesy of SF Symphony

BORIS GUDONOV: SF SYMPHONY PRODUCTION Puzzles & Notes

Modest Mussorgsky wrote both the libretto and the music for Boris Gudonov, a masterpiece of music and theater.

Michael Tilson Thomas, Music Director and Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony

Presented at the San Francisco Symphony’s Davies Hall, June 14 – 17, 2018, there were at least sixteen artists involved in the creation of the multi-media, semi-staged production. This includes artists: Maestro Michael Tilson Thomas, Conductor and Music Director of the SFS;  Ragnar Bohlin, SFS Chorus Director; Andrew Brown, director of the Pacific Boy Choir; stage director, James Darrah; lighting designer, Pablo Santiago; video designer, Adam Larsen; associate video designer, Hana S. Kim; scenic and costume designers, Emily Anne MacDonald and Cameron Jay Mock; choreographer, Christopher Bordenave; assistant lighting designer, Alexa Oakes; assistant to the director, Sergey Khalikulov; production stage manager, Angela Turner; assistant production stage manager, Julie Chin; supertitles, Ron Valentino; Russian diction coach, Yelena Kurdina. This list does not include the full cast, the members of the two choruses, the dancer/actors, or the IATSE Stagehands or Theatrical Wardrobe members who make a production click along backstage so that onstage, theater can happen.

The effect of this network of collaborations was enormous and impressive. To describe the semi-staged productions presented by Michael Tilson Thomas: The orchestra is on stage. The cast of the opera performs in front (downstage) of the orchestra, on stairs or a ramp that goes alongside of the orchestra and across the back of the orchestra (upstage and literally up–on a higher level than the orchestra). The walls on the sides of the orchestra were wrapped in order to project images and video onto them.  At the beginning of the opera, Russian texts/Cyrillic letters were projected as the six dancer-actors crawled on the stage floor or stooped over to paw through pages of books and papers.  Other times, the projections were multi colored, looking like colored oil on slides. Watching the projections change was fascinating and rarely took my attention away from the music, singing, acting, and general progress of the plot.

The cast of dancer/actors were highly skilled movers and as a group had a strong presence on stage. They took various roles. Sometimes they were peasants, sometimes vicious ruffians. The director did not spare them or even the leading singers from doing the physical work of fighting or torturing another actor. There were a few times this audience member could not figure out why they were doing what they did. There was a point when they each picked up a red-orange piece of cloth, kept it in hand, and waved or flipped it around. That action’s peculiarity was its main distinction. Could it have symbolized celebration of Boris’ ascension to Czardom? Only a guess. The actions and the fabric did not seem to add up to a coronation or to a protest.

Stanislav Trofimov

No one person is given credit in the program for the overall vision of the presentation or for coordinating the artists accomplishing so many different aspects of the production. Without knowing for sure, it seems most likely that MTT called together the director and designers who could put his ideas into real time onstage. It is a huge achievement.

On the SF Symphony’s video of brief interviews with MTT and the costume designers, the costume artists describe taking great efforts researching the costumes of Boris’ era. In performance, some costumes created a sense of time and place and added power to seeing these particular people going through terrible experiences–some of their own making. At the same time, Boris Gudonov (Bass, Stanislav Trofimov) and Prince Shuisky (Tenor, Yevgeny Akimov)  wore gray, slightly baggy, 20th century, business suits. Why? Boris also wore glasses and a wristwatch. That could not have been an accident with so many people back stage and in the cast available to remind him to take them off. Were they generic, gray suits or were they meant to symbolize a particular time? Were they meant to reflect on Khrushchev during his visit to the US? How would that contribute to the development of the opera? It’s puzzling. Andrei Shchelkalov (portrayed by Baritone, Aleksey Bogdanov ) also wore a suit. His had a Victorian aura perhaps only because, as I remember it, it was dark and had a vest.

The story of Boris Gudonov is a puzzle itself. The history is murky; nothing is clear except confusion and danger. An imposter, dressed in a glittering white costume, takes the throne at the end. it is another example of the lies that become reality in the era and the opera. It is not a satisfactory resolution of the rule of a Czar said to be a monster, but history seldom has tidy resolutions. The impact of this production was powerful and alarming: an oncoming MACK truck of music, drama, historical horror. In his video interview, Michael Tilson Thomas calls it a “sonic spectacular.” San Francisco Symphony’s magnificent production was most definitely that.