Author Archives: Leslie

Sibelius, Joshua Bell, Sibelius, SF Symphony: Spectacular

SF Symphony, Davies Hall, San Francisco, April 27, 2023:  The program opened with Nautilus by Anna Meredith. Composed in 2011, this was its first SF Symphony performance. It is extremely challenging to write about this concert. When I think of this evening of music, I shake my head a bit and widen my eyes. Which superlatives are adequate? Joshua Bell was the soloist for Violin Concerto in D minor, Opus 47 (1905), by Jean Sibelius. Dalia Stasevska conducted. The SF Symphony performed Symphony No. 2 in D major, Opus 43 (1902), by Sibelius. Every moment of that music was powerful, urgent, necessary. Both of the Sibelius works sound like no other concerto or symphony. It was thrilling to hear and see this music. It was a stupendous, spectacular, over the top wonderful performance. Each SFS musician, Bell, and Stasevska were playing at the height of physical and mental experience. The Sibelius works are virtuosic masterpieces. The Violin Concerto demands the most intricate, masterful technique possible. Sibelius had dreams of becoming a violin virtuoso but instead moved further in his composing. The Concerto was written by someone who knew every bit of what a violin could do in the hands of a singular master; Joshua Bell is the person Sibelius dreamed of for this music.

Jean Sibelius, composer (1865 – 1957)

The  Concerto opens with a strong, almost other-worldly presentation that introduces the soloist’s amazing abilities with the relatively small instrument that is able to take the audience immediately into the sky as on a test jet, hum a lullaby, make our heads float on a cloud, and then brings us into a dark forest without a compass. Sibelius is not interested in comfort for the audience or the soloist. A cadenza, an improvisational passage played by the soloist or a written, fancifully decorated passage, usually comes as a climax. Sibelius was not interested in “usually.” A written cadenza is the heart of the first movement, Allegro moderato. The stamp of Virtuoso is pressed into every movement by the soloist. Joshua Bell absorbs the entire score into his physical being. It takes movement to make music, and, at the same time, the music which is created by movements then shapes the movements of the player. It is fascinating to see Mr. Bell express the music with each movement of his back, the hands manipulating the violin and bow, the step forward that happens when the energy of making music changes where the weight is placed in the body, and a foot comes down.

Joshua Bell, violinist       

The second movement, Adagio di molto, is beautiful in a new way that Sibelius found to be beautiful. Sometimes it is the solo violin, sometimes the clarinet and bassoon, and then back to the soloist, a flute, the strings. All is quiet. It is a soft sensation. Was it because the music was soft to hear or was it making a softness the listener will remember as something one could touch or something that touched her? Allegro ma non tanto is the third movement. It has everything. It drives onward, it dances on beats we cannot count, flies and looks like it could crash, but it drives ahead and in spirals. Joshua Bell is unleashed – if there was ever the least restraint – as themes from throughout the Concerto propel this rocket. Sir Donald Tovey, the musicologist, composer, orchestra director, made that comment about a “polonaise for polar bears,” but he did not intend to demean Sibelius’ Violin Concerto at all. He also wrote: “… I have not met a more original, a more masterly, and a more exhilarating work than the Sibelius violin concerto.” The opening night audience, April 27, at Davies appropriately went wild applauding. After perhaps 4 (or 5) curtain calls, Mr. Bell appeared with his violin. He and Wyatt Underhill, the SFS Assistant Concertmaster, played an encore. Mr. Bell announced it as a little tune by Shostakovich. It was an excerpt from Shostakovich’s Five Pieces for Two Violins. It was a lovely, quiet beauty. The audience, giddy from getting an encore, applauded more and longer, but they had to be satisfied by the greatness they had already heard and seen.

In theater, actors are taught to listen to the other characters. One cannot rehearse lines in one’s head; that would set the actor apart from the action. I have a strong image of Mr. Bell waiting for his entries into the music. He is listening. He looks at the conductor. He is hearing it all and ready, completely occupied by the music. One time I saw him quickly pull a hair from his bow. He immediately returned to his focus.

There was a wonderful, silent communication between Dalia Stasevska and Joshua Bell. In one moment while he played, she faced him with her arms reaching out as though saying, “yes, yes, keep on just as you are.” Her gestures while conducting are strong, direct, clear. She shows the strength of her intent in every movement. Ms Stasevska is sought after by many orchestras mostly everywhere. She is the Chief Conductor of Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Artistic Director of the International Sibelius Festival, the Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. This season she performed with the Chicago, Toronto, Montreal Symphonies, the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics.

Dalia Stasevska            

The Symphony No. 2 in D minor, Opus 43 (1902) is another example of Sibelius’ grand, intelligent creativity. He wanted an abstract work designed so the music itself produces the music. Elements of the work seem to talk with other aspects of music and time. He supplied no story, no reference to Finnish folklore, and was not now even inspired by Finnish traditions. He stepped into the deep end and came up with something Sibelius that neither he nor others had thought of before. However, art is not always received by the onlooker or listener in the way the creator meant it to be. Finnish musicologists, audiences, and critics heard it as music for their resistance against Tsar Nicholas II. Finland was part of the Russian empire, but the Finns asserted their independence. When it had its premiere, Ilmari Krohn, Finnish critic, called this symphony “our liberation symphony.” Sibelius did not join in that description, but that mark has lasted.

Jean Sibelius

Sibelius’s father passed away when Jean was only 3 years old. He and his mother moved to his widowed, maternal grandmother’s home. He was fortunate that he had a paternal uncle who was interested in music and gave him a violin at age 10. An aunt taught him to play the piano, but the violin was his first love. He and his brother and sister would play trios. Jean started composing short pieces and recorded them on paper. In 1883, on the subject of composing, he wrote, “They (his compositions) are rather poor, but it is nice to have something to do on a rainy day.” He was 18 at that time. When his Symphony No. 2 was premiered he wrote that “My Second Symphony is a confession of the soul.” The Symphony’s four movements all seem to grow from the first movement, Allegretto. it is like a family of four; they are not alike but one can see/hear their origins. The second movement, Tempo andante ma rubato, is totally different than the activity and continuous movement of the Allegretto. The SF Symphony was powerful, as inspired by Sibelius and led by Conductor Stasevska. The SFS never ran off the tracks though it moved through the different directions and meters like a train running in the air. The Andante was suddenly heart-rending, quiet, and full of longing. The last two movements, Vivacissimo–lento e soave and Allegro moderato bring all the passengers together, joined in a new reality. The music is the creator, peacemaker, and promise. The Finnish audiences were thrilled in 1902 just as we are in 2023. Their critics wrote it “exceeded even the boldest expectations,” Oskar Merikanto, composer. “An absolute masterpiece,” Evert Katila. Nothing less. A spectacular performance.

 

 

 

Marsalis, Tarkiainen, Shostakovich: Great Music@Davies Hall

San Francisco, April 23, 2023, Davies Symphony Hall:  The San Francisco Symphony presented a program of three different kinds of music and demonstrated their ability to excel in all of them. It was an exciting experience: one could not hear any of the stunning music and anticipate what would come next. Guest Conductor Cristian Macelaru showed us his understanding of great music originating in America, Lapland/Finland, Russia. He was a masterful leader letting the music stay in front and have its way. One can see why he is the music director of the Orchestre National de France, chief conductor of the WDR Sinfonieorchester, and music director and conductor of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. He lives in music, a universal language.

Wynton Marsalis, composer, musician, educator

Two movements from Wynton Marsalis’ Blues Symphony opened the program. They were terrific: complicated, fun, exciting, thrilling, sophisticated music. There is only one problem with the performance: where are the other five movements? Great as the two we got to hear are, it made me ready for the entire Blues Symphony, and soon. The Blues Symphony premiered in 2009, performed by the Atlanta Symphony. This was its first SF Symphony performance. Mr. Marsalis believes that jazz needs to have its history codified. He knows that the music lives across generations and even centuries. Felix Mendelssohn revived Bach. Bach was dismissed as a music “mathematician.” His work was ignored. Thanks to Mendelssohn’s great-aunt, grandmother, father, and his tutor Zelter, all of whom found Bach manuscripts and encouraged 15 year old Felix Mendelssohn.  Then, Felix re-discovered the St. Matthew Passion. After 5 years of preparation, Mendelssohn presented its second debut, 102 years after its first. The link between those composers gave the 21st century the knowledge and beauties of Bach.To give jazz the respect it deserves, and to recognize its contributions to other kinds of music and other cultures, Mr. Marsalis has adopted the continuing and massive effort of delineating jazz history. Styles come and go, but music lasts. Marsalis wants “to further the legacy of George Gershwin, James P. Johnson, Leonard Bernstein, John Lewis, Gunther Schuller, and others.” Musicians and composers know what went before them. They grow through it, make it their own, and keep it alive.

In tonight’s program, presented first was Reconstruction Rag, the third movement of the Blues Symphony.

Wynton Marsalis (born 1961 in New Orleans)

Sean Colonna wrote the program note for this performance. He mentions the elements of jazz at the turn of the 19th century into the 20th: ragtime and the “‘African Mystique’ that fascinated white audiences.” I would add that the fascination for many white audiences was as though the musicians came from another, lesser planet. That’s the “Reconstruction” of it. Remember what happened after the Civil War? African-Americans were placed in situations that robbed them and punished them for their new freedoms. Despite ragtime’s bumptious charm and rhythms, there is a kernel of the blues at the heart of this extraordinary music. There are many layers of sound and rhythm spiraling around the heady, engaging rag. The music that sounds so gay can mislead you into thinking the movement is only about a party except there is more. Big City Breaks, the next movement played, is the fifth movement of the Symphony. It is the embodiment of the sounds and music of New York City especially in the rich Bebop era which produced and fostered so many heroic, creative musicians and composers. There are traffic noises, a police whistle, a lot of percussion. Once again there are layers of sounds interrupting other sounds, tunes, rhythms. So many places to look: across the street, up to the high walls of skyscrapers, people dressed in their finery, people looking out for the bus. Again, there are multiple meanings to the movement’s title; there are all kinds of breaks. I think of break dancing on the streets, I think of the break that comes in a tap dance step, a break that gives one a better job. And someone or something that seeks to break you, your will, and your heart. Therefore, I am impatiently tapping my toe until I get to hear the whole Blues Symphony.

Outi Tarkiainen, composer

This was the US Premiere of Ms Tarkiainen’s beautiful contribution to the concert, Milky Ways, written in 2022. It was commissioned by the SF Symphony. The piece is a concerto for English horn and orchestra. It was entirely new and different in so many ways. She expresses her connection to the natural world and desires that her music involves her audience without ever abandoning the music itself. She is quoted describing the interaction of humans and music, “I see music as a force of nature that can flood over a person and even change entire destinies.” The English horn, played by Russ de Luna, SFS English horn, was called upon to wrap a delicate web around the atmosphere that humans live in. His performance was powerful in its expressive beauty. There are three movements: The Infant Gaze, Interplays, At the Fountainhead of God. As a female composer, she does not dodge defining herself as a female living a life determined by her connection to nature and earth. She had no embarrassment or coverup for talking to the audience about mother milk. The Greeks, she said, observed the sky, saw a vast display of stars, and called it the Milky Way because it is like a long stripe of spilled milk. There is also the other milky way that infants, human and otherwise, experience to nourish them and receive love. The mother and baby dream; the mother wakes to the baby’s face and sees it as a “gift from God.”  Another breakthrough in this music is that for decades if not centuries, women entering lives that had long been available only to men, would surely not want their work to be considered delicate. Ms Tarkiainen’s music is delicate and powerful simultaneously. She has found that strength in gentleness. When the lights on the stage turned down, and there was no light but over each music stand, Mr. de Luna slowly walked on a diagonal line from center to upstage left and off. The music captures the audience through sound and live image. A brilliant premiere. The SF Symphony performed with grace and strength.

Dmitri Shostakovich, composer (1906 – 1975)

Symphony No. 1 in F minor, Opus, 10. This listener had never heard Symphony No. 1 before this presentation. It allows a brief reverie wondering about the Shostakovich who had not yet been persecuted by Stalin and his vicious toadies. This symphony was written in 1925. He wrote it as his graduation project for the Leningrad Conservatory, in Leningrad/St. Petersburg. Russia. He was, however, already Shostakovich. Symphony No. 1 was premiered in public, in Leningrad, a year later, after it helped him pass his exams. It was a hit. He received immediate recognition as an artist whose work would be allowed to tour outside of the Soviet Union. This led to a performance with the Berlin Philharmonic, led by Bruno Walter, 1927, and, ultimately to the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski, 1928. The music is magnificent; there is no need to dwell on the composer’s youth. The orchestration allows solos for the violin, cello, and piano. It becomes personal, reaching from the instruments to the audience directly, as though the composer sets these musicians apart to carry a message. These solo moments were performed with virtuoso skill and heart by the SF Symphony artists. The four movements have purposefully chaotic moments, the Shostakovich irony and hint of sarcasm, and bright, energetic passages that beg the orchestra to go ahead and dance. Shostakovich’s individualistic eye cannot help but express his environment, a world in tatters, a yearning for hope to exist. He knew his world. In retrospect, he is almost prophetic of what lies ahead. This is not the Symphony of a beginner in life or art.

Bach & Handel: Magnificent

April 13, 2023, Davies Symphony Hall:  The San Francisco Symphony and Chorus celebrated the best of the Baroque with their precise and gorgeous performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Magnificat in D major, BWV, 243 (1723). Guest conductor Dame Jane Glover, a leader of the world of early music, conducted. It was an all star event. Vocal soloists were Cheryl Cain, soprano; Morgan Balfour, soprano; Leandra Ramm, mezzo soprano; Michael Jankosky, tenor; Matthew Peterson, baritone.

Johann Sebastian Bach, composer (1685-1750)

Bach wrote The Magnificat soon after moving to Leipzig. It was his home for the rest of his life. His Magnificat was performed on Christmas day. His first version of it was a bit higher, E-flat major, than the one performed now in D major. In the first version, he included Christmas texts which are now called Christmas interpolations. He premiered the new version in the summer of 1733. All of the text of the music comes from Luke 1:46-55. Mary has experienced the Annunciation, learns that Elizabeth, her older relative, will also have a baby, and together they sing their joy about their unusual but blessed situations. The work opens with the statement, “Magnificat anima mea Dominum” ( My soul magnifies the Lord). Each of the 12 movements has its own kernel of an idea. The meaning and singing of the messages are compressed so that the Magnificat contains all of the religious story in the most direct way. It is a demonstration of the power of concise construction. The music and singing are directed to the audience in a way that lifts their hearts in joy as well.

Dame Jane Glover, conductor

Bach’s Concerto for Oboe and Violin in D minor, BWV 1060 was originally composed for harpsichord. Apparently, Bach would write for harpsichord but then transcribe the music for other instruments. The composition of this work started probably in 1730-1733. The harpsichord has characteristics all its own. The sounds it makes do not last, it has a greater range than other instruments, and it can play multiple notes at a time. The late, great music writer Michael Steinberg observed that the differences of the instruments Bach wrote for meant that he would change the key so that the music would suit each instrument’s character. This glorious piece for oboe, violin, and orchestra was reconstructed by Max Schneider in 1920, two hundred years after the original, two-harpsichord concerto in C-minor which is now lost. Whatever the mysterious origins of the Concerto we hear now, it is completely beautiful. The soloists made the music fly. Eugene Izotov, Principal Oboe of the SFS, and Alexander Barantschik, Concertmaster of the SFS were extraordinary. Watching the physical act of Concertmaster Barantschik playing the violin was visually fascinating at the same time as the completely wonderful music. Principal Oboist Izotov’s oboe demonstrated the remarkable expressive gifts of the oboe. This music in three movements has beauties that are full of energy, graceful, touching, and embracing. The Allegro ending movement captures the audience in its musical arms. We want to go there again.

The program after intermission belonged to Handel even though it opened with a lovely, new piece. Stacy Garrrop’s Spectacle of Light, was a complete delight. This was its SFS premiere. Ms Garrop was present to speak to the audience about the visual imagery that inspired her music. While that was very interesting, one hears the excitement of a gathering waiting for fireworks to begin, the pop and bigger explosions of light and color, and even the fizzle of the last sounds of the display. While Ms Garrop’s piece matched the event depicted in an etching she had seen and which was included in the program, the Spectacle of Light can stand on its own as bright and colorful music piquing the listener’s imagination.

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) composer

The Music for the Royal Fireworks was commissioned to celebrate a peace treaty, the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. It is impossible to describe why there was a War of the Austrian Succession, so on to the music. Handel was given instructions and sometimes demands about what music he should create. The aristocratic bureaucrats and courtiers competed with each other with their ideas. The stage designer Giovanni Niccolo Servandoni out Disney-ed Disney in an era without electricity. There were to be gigantic images of Greek gods and of King George II, triumphal arches, and The Biggest Fireworks. Handel first required 16 trumpets and horns. Then, he cut back to only 12 of each. Unlike most modern producers, reducing the numbers upset the quarrelsome Duke of Montagu and the Comptroller of his Majesty’s Fireworks as well as for War as for Triumph. As for the King, he mostly wanted “no fidles.” Handel’s plan was to follow the 18th century French style influenced by Jean-Phillippe Rameau. It is a calm and rather official sounding opening followed quickly by faster music. Again in the French style, Handel composed a dance movement, the Bourree. Another kind of dance, this one slightly Italian with a siciliano character follows with a title, La Paix/Peace. Appropriately following La Paix is La Rejouissance/Rejoicing. This last section sounds almost almost like a march. Handel has an interesting way with these  movements. His instructions are that La Rejouissance is played three times, each with different instruments leading the way: first it is trumpets, woodwinds and strings; then, horns and woodwinds; last with all the instruments. He ends the festival music with music of another dance style, the minuet. It is so appropriate that the Baroque dance styles play an important role in Handel’s music. Jean-Phillippe Rameau wrote music for ballets, and he followed in the ballet steps of Lully, the founder of French ballet music. The Music for the Royal Fireworks is a journey through glory; even and orderly art; fantastic festivities. The SFS, led by Dame Jane Glover, produced all the sound, images, and thrills in a way that Handel and King George II would appreciate. Early in his tenure as Artistic Director of the San Francisco Ballet, Helgi Tommason created a wonderful ballet for this music. The danseurs tossed their ballerina partners into the air like colorful fireworks or stars.

 

 

MTT & MAHLER: The Terrifying 6th Symphony

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS conducts the San Francisco Symphony in Mahler’s 6th Symphony, March 30, 2023:

This giant and terrifying symphony was performed by the San Francisco Symphony with greatness as led by Michael Tilson Thomas.

Please  note: Despite the fact that “terrifying” is the description, do not ever pass up an opportunity to hear it. It has a unique greatness and universal importance. It reaches each listener deeply, as though Mahler addresses us personally and the world at the same time.

Michael Tilson Thomas became Music Director of the SFS in 1995. He made San Francisco a Mahler town. Mahler’s name was painted on the Muni buses. MTT’s Mahler concerts were always sold out. In addition to his 12 Grammy Awards, he shared his musical knowledge and love. We all have grown through his gifts. The standing ovation that welcomed MTT as he entered the stage was given due to the respect and admiration the city continues to hold for him. He is now the Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, conductor Laureate of the London Symphony, co-founder, artistic director laureate of the New World Symphony, and has conducted every major orchestra of the US and Europe.

Michael Tilson Thomas, Music Director Laureate, San Franciso Symphony

We stood in respectful attention, applauding him to salute him and show our thanks, and then, he conducted music that terrified us all. I mean amazing, innovative, nightmare music composed exactly to warn us: something is coming. This music grabs the listener’s heart and comes this close to ripping it from the listener’s chest.

What is it all about? Mahler himself was stuck between thinking modern music would have an “underlying program,” and knowing that if stories, emotions, or experiences would be spelled out, the music will go flat as the listeners will not really be listening or baring their hearts to this very particular experience. So, he does not give up answers to the riddles.

From the first sounds of the first movement, Allegro Energico, Ma Non Troppo, we are in a threatening world. The music begins with quiet drums, the sound to accompany an army. When we first hear them they are far away, but the drums come nearer and louder. Soon, they are all around us. Trumpets and then oboes sweep in and over us. Suddenly, the music becomes more lyrical. The violins alternate with woodwinds. The music abruptly shifts to this swirling beauty, but it does not last. According to Michael Steinberg, the great writer of SFS’s program notes, the composer’s wife, Alma Mahler, believed this music is portraying her. I believe that she believed that, but, personally, I would not want to be the character in this passage. This music is on a precipice too high, too steep; the character – if in fact Mahler thought of a physical, living being identified in the music – the music character is going to be taken by surprise by another character carrying a big knife. That feels right. Mahler knew what was coming, I cannot believe Alma is there, but as the movement moves toward its end the marching returns. There is a powerful recapitulation. The Alma music returns. Is this a win for Alma? I do not think it will be. Some of this music changes direction roughly, quickly. I hear the changes to loveliness from threats and back again. Mahler is ironic. The sweepingly gentle sounds are not meant to stay. They are there to be eaten by predators. Human predators.

Gustav Mahler, born July 7.1860, Kaliste, Bohemia, died May 18, 1911, Vienna

In rehearsals for the premiere, of his Symphony No. 6, Mahler was torn between having the Scherzo come before the Andante Moderato or vice versa. There were revisions after the first performance, but, in 1963, for the Critical Complete Edition, the editor, Erwin Ratz, settled on keeping the Scherzo second. It has stayed that way for most conductors. Mahler reversed the order of these movements in his second performance of No. 6 and in the second edition. Later, he regretted the change and Ratz believed that Mahler had wanted to go back to the first version.

The Scherzo has ragged rhythms. Nothing is metrically solid or predictable. It is extremely modern for its era in that way. Once again, Alma Mahler recorded her perception of the music. She thought that it represents “the arrhythmical play of little children.” Are the children of the music trying to run away? Are they imps, devilish but not cute- devilish? If they are playing – if there is in the music any vision of physical, solid personages – is that an image that Gustav Mahler would want us to see? The Scherzo’s sounds are broken up, wrenched around, even violent. If Mahler intended images of children, and I doubt it, they are either bad children kicking and beating on each other, or the music again has irony and sarcasm in it. If children are there, they are being lashed and brutally stomped.

After the harsh Scherzo, the Andante Moderato is melodic with gorgeous harmonies. There are sudden reminders of the hints of tranquility which were threatened by the marchers in the first movement. The cowbells played in the Allegro come back. The color and glimpses of love and loveliness waft about us. The Andante is a refuge from the violent Scherzo. Will we be allowed to stay in the refuge?

Absolutely not.

The Finale is longer than the first movement and longer than the two middle movements combined. The distant sound of cowbells in the Allegro, the first movement, is a reminder of a perfect place. It is far away, pastoral, peaceful. Nothing else, nowhere else is. The orchestra for this symphony is grand in numbers as well as in the music they create. There are many of each instrument. For example, there are 4 bassoons, plus a contrabassoon, 8 horns, 6 trumpets, 3 trombones plus a bass trombone. There are 2 timpani players, and a vast variety of percussion: bass drum, chimes, cowbells, cymbals, glockenspiel, hammer, rute*, 2 snare drums, tam-tam, triangle, and xylophone. *A rute is a bundle of birch twigs/sticks used to brush against a bass drum.

The Finale begins with the sound that something dropped; it is a low C. Then, there are many different instruments playing strangely together but not simultaneously and not playing the same thing. This music pulls our mental rug out from under our feet. What is going on? Why do I hear the harp, the woodwinds, more strings making these strange sounds? It is as though they are playing from different worlds, making music that jerks and pulls at each sound. The violins go rogue on their own. The drummers have a vicious sound in their relentless march. What is called the “fate” chord appears in multiple variations. The audience feels the music and seems to be forced to watch and know in their hearts the disintegration of what we had thought was the order of life, of our universe, or, at least, the order in musical sounds.

The lead percussionist appears in the empty chorus above the stage. He is seated on the lowest row. He has in his hand a hammer. It is huge. He strikes with it, and we feel the enormous sound reverberate in our spines. The music returns with an increased energy expressing the soldiers’ march growing ever more insistent and intense. They are coming for us. The music grows more wild and emphatic and scary. The hammer strikes again. The music changes. It is funereal. It blows away, losing force, becoming very quiet, nearly silent. There is a final huge, explosive A minor chord. The music has fulfilled its promise; it began with this chord and has returned, and so have the drums.

The music was terrifying. Michael Steinberg uses the metaphor of a hero “in the full flood of confidence and exaltation a hammer-blow strikes him down.” That is one way to think of what is happening in the music; it echoes a reflection written by Mahler. For me, that hammer blow was not aimed at only one person. It is an emblem of destruction. The horror of Symphony No. 6 is fitting for our world today. Extinctions of so many species. Water and air pollution shorten humans life expectancy. Money from fossil fuel corporations pollute politics. Wars, famine, gigantic fires, hurricanes, floods. Gustav Mahler died in 1911, three years from the start of World War I. What would have happened to him if he had lived deeper into the 20th century? Michael Steinberg, a child born in Germany, 1926, was saved by the Kindertransport to England, in 1939. Later, he moved to the US. Michael Steinberg reports in his program notes that Mahler believed the artist could “intuit, even to experience, events before they occur, that in fact he cannot escape the pain of such foreknowledge.” Mahler had experienced personal tragedy in 1907: his daughter Maria died, he discovered he had a serious, not curable heart ailment, and his directorship of the Vienna Opera ended in bad circumstances. However, perhaps through dreadful, personal knowledge and experience, he gave the world a warning of world-destroying tragedy.

Jean-Yves Thibaudet & Debussy

Sunday, March 26, Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco:  Jean-Yves Thibaudet performed Claude Debussy’s Preludes, Books 1 and 2 and blew the minds of everyone in the hall. These Debussy works are seldom heard all together. Maybe some extraordinary pianist would perform the Preludes of one of the Books or possibly one or a few of the Preludes, but who would or could perform all of them? So far as I know, only M. Thibaudet. The Preludes are works for solo piano. Each “Book” has 12 of them. Not one of them is like any of the others, except for their miniature form: each is between two and four minutes long.

Claude Debussy, composer (1862 – 1918)

These pieces are not the prelude to something else; they may be brief, but each one is a world in itself. Frederic Chopin wrote 24 Preludes but they did not have names or descriptions. Debussy’s are written with each one having a descriptive word according to its meter or mood. The first one of Book 1 is “Lent et grave,” slow and serious. However, Debussy also gives each one a descriptive title that appears at the end of each prelude. In the first one of Book 1 it is “Danseuses de Delphes,” The Dancers of Delphi. Another one in Book 1, the third prelude, has Anime as its traditional heading: Animated. The descriptive name at the end: “Le Vent dans le plaine/suspend son haleine;” “The wind over the plain/Holds its breath.” This is one of the literary quotations or references that appear in the Preludes. The phrase may be from Charles Simon-Favart, an 18th century composer and playwright. Later, the French poet Paul Verlaine used it as a heading for his poem, “L’extase langoureuse.” In 1874. Debussy had made a song of Verlaine’s poem. These artists are in tune with their culture, whether it is the culture of a century ago or current.

Jean-Ives Thibaudet, French pianist who lives in Los Angeles

Capricieux et leger, the 11th Prelude of Book 1, also has the title, “La Danse de Puck.” The Puck of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a playful jokester. The music of this Prelude has the liveliness of Puck’s flying and jumping and his occasionally trouble-making character. Debussy loved Shakespeare and was also an anglophile. In Book 2, the 9th Prelude is Grave, Hommage a S. Pickwick, Esq. P.P.M.P.C.. It honors Samuel Pickwick from Charles Dickens’s first book, The Pickwick Papers. 

M. Thibaudet always dresses elegantly. This time, he appeared in black. From where I was sitting I saw him well but may have missed details, except for his shoes. I could see the bright bar across the top of his foot. I mention this because it drew my eye to his feet. In the program notes, James M. Keller quotes composer Alfredo Casella, a Debussy contemporary, who also took note of Debussy’s feet: “Moreover, he used the pedals in a way all his own.” I am convinced that M. Thibaudet did so, too. Most of the time, I could see only the downstage foot (the foot closest to the audience). The upstage foot must have been exactly parallel and doing its own pedal thing.

Here is more from Alfredo Casella on Debussy’s playing: “…his sensibility of touch was incomparable; he made the impression of playing directly on the strings of the instrument with no intermediate mechanism; the effect was a miracle of poetry.”

This is an apt description of M. Thibaudet’s playing as well.

While it is entertaining to glance through the traditional citations and names like “Modere (Brouillards) Moderate…Mists, it would be a terrible mistake to disregard the beauty and difficulty of the music. No one in the audience could fail to realize the magnificence of M. Thibaudet’s performance. It was literally stunning to watch and listen. Each Prelude has its own meter, a special tone, a unique set of technical challenges. The pianist does not have a through-line of theme or color or emotion. The Preludes are a celebration of the particular. Attention to the most challenging individual elements of the pianist’s technique cannot waver. It is more intense and requires more precision than an Olympic Decathlon and probably as much strength and energy.

Jean-Yves Thibaudet performed something that maybe no one since Debussy himself has done, or done so well. He took the challenge of performing both Books and embraced the vast variety and individual beauties of the Preludes. It could be compared to tight rope walking between two high rise buildings while playing master level chess. The audience cheered and applauded for at least 5 curtain calls. M. Thibaudet succumbed to the audience’s raptures and played Sir Edward Elgar’s Salut d’Amour as his encore. It was a salute to the program’s complexity, charm, originality, and earth-moving beauty. The audience called M. Thibaudet back for another 4 or 5 chances to applaud him before everyone reluctantly realized the music was over for this night.

Jean-Ives Thibaudet will perform the solo program of Debussy’s Preludes throughout the US and Europe this year. He also will appear in recital with Renee Fleming and will tour in the US and Japan with Midori. In addition, he will perform with Itzhak Perlman and Friends in New York City, Michigan, Toronto. The French Ministry of Culture awarded him the title, Officier, in 2012. He is a great artist; don’t miss him.

 

 

 

Hilary Hahn and J.S. Bach

Hilary Hahn’s solo recital on March 12 was truly great. The word astonishing fits except that it is not a surprise when Ms Hahn performs in a way that combines flawless technique with emotion, color, and devotion to the music. While hearing her play three of Johann Sebastian Bach’s works for solo violin, I knew that this was pure Bach. There is no ego or personal style filtering the music. The music did not need such additions; it was exciting, an on-the-edge-of- the-seat experience. It was pure music.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

The program offered Sonata No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001; Partita No. 1 in B minor, BWV, 1002; and, after intermission, Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004.

Hilary Hahn, Violinist

Purity does not mean that it was simple. Every note, every multiple note created a world of sound. Sound is a real, physical thing. It can change the world around it. Sound can move mountains; consider an avalanche.

The Sonata No. 1 in G minor is listed first of Bach’s six works for solo violin. Its parts are Adagio, Fuga: Allegro, Siciliano, Presto. The order of Slow, Fast, Slow, Fast is intentional. It balances classical order with the interweaving of free imagination and openmindedness. There is a mathematical intelligence at play. My college roommate, Leah Johnson Wilcox, was a math major. I knew she knew games of balance and dimensions and that I would never be able to play on that field. Ms Hahn’s superb intelligence is a wonderful match with Bach’s. Together, they explore balance, space, rhythms; they play with time and space. The listener is joyfully immersed in the mathematics of music without really knowing it is happening.

The Partitas have movements named for dances. The Siciliano in Sonata No. 1 is the only dance character in the Sonatas. Baroque dances were crazy complicated in their patterning of order. Partita No. 1 in B minor opens with an Allemande, and then its Double; next comes a Courante and its Double: Presto; Sarabande, and its Double; Tempo di Borea (Bourree) – and its Double. The Double is an ancestor of a jazz variation; it spins out something new from a standard. Here, the music takes off from the musical idea of the dance movement first presented. The rhythms and characters of the dances go beyond a restatement of a physical, 18thc. dance. The music tells us the DNA of a Courante’s running motion or the Sarabande’s dignity and sadness. It is not only the heart of the music in motion; it exposes Bach’s understanding of the electrical pulses and chemical interactions that keep it alive.

Restraint can be beautiful. Order can breathe. These violin solo works are not embroidered or showing off innovation. They combine profound creativity with their classic forms.

There were moments in the recital when I am certain I heard Bach speak. Did Bach invent music? I know that is not true, not entirely true. It only seems that way sometimes. There are not adequate ways to describe Ms Hahn’s greatness. Standing alone on an empty stage, she filled the stage and Davies Hall with her presence and her powerful connection to the music she made.

The Partita No. 2 in G minor shares its format with Partita No. 1 but its Fate led it somewhere else. This one has no Doubles, but it does have five movements: Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue, and Chaconne. The mood of the first four movements is tinged with reflection, controlled order; if we were to use Romantic thoughts we might find regret. The Gigue (Jig) takes rhythm over the mountain, dancing with wild energy which takes the rhythmic demands farther than one could expect, and even farther than that. And then, there is the Chaconne. It is very long, so long as the all the first four movements together. It gives us a theme and then sixty-four variations. I do not remember breathing as I heard this majestic music. It gathers the knowledge of music’s world and, in the last two strokes of the bow, made my heart stop in awe.

For more about Ms Hahn, please see the article at http://www.livelyfoundation.org/wordpress/?p=1359   about her Davies Hall recital on April 26, 2016, with Cory Smythe, pianist. The program included work by Mozart, Bach, Aaron Copland, and Tina Davidson’s Blue Curve of the Earth, the winner of a competition for new encore pieces sponsored by Ms Hahn.

 

HERBERT BLOMSTEDT with the San Francisco Symphony

There is no point to searching for the best adjective. “Herbert Blomstedt” says it all. The extraordinary conductor brought us a program of two Czech composers. One is well known and loved, Antonin Dvorak, the other,  Jan Vaclav Vorisek, barely known but deserving love. The matinee performance, February 12, 2023, indeed was a love fest. The audience felt profound admiration and affection for Maestro Blomstedt, but that was not all. The SFS matched their Conductor Laureate’s direction as though they were made of one essence. Herbert Blomstedt conducted what must be the internal truth of the music. The music was played perfectly, according to the brilliant conductor’s insights and precise, forceful leadership. This was perfection in sound so it was never rigid. Every moment was full of life.

Herbert Blomstedt conducting at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, 2015

Maestro Blomstedt selected Jan Vaclav Vorisek’s Symphony in D major, Opus 23 (1823). This year is that symphony’s 200th birthday. While the fine program comments noted the influence of Mozart in the Andante which could be a funeral march, and Beethoven and Schubert’s influence in the Finale, for this listener, it was all new. Vorisek’s opening is an Allegro con Brio, delightfully brisk. The Andante features graceful, tranquil woodwind performances, and the Scherzo offers the unusual 9/8 rhythm. The Finale energetically returns to Allegro con Brio with one brief salute to Beethoven’s 5th symphony. It was a wonderful introduction to an individualistic creation of fine and truly original music. Sadly, Jan Vaclav Vorisek, born in Bohemia, 1791, died in Vienna, 1825, age 34. This symphony was  not published in his life; it did not appear until 1957. We are fortunate that Herbert Blomstedt’s vast musical knowledge has led him to champion this mostly unknown treasure.

Herbert Blomstedt, Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony, 1985-1995, now Conductor Laureate of SFS and other world leading orchestras – see below for details

Although a Dvorak devotee, I think I somehow missed hearing his Symphony No.8 in G Major, Opus 88 in person. Lucky me to hear it first as conducted by Herbert Blomstedt. He will perform it with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, March 9, 11, 12. If you missed it in San Francisco. There really is not anything better for you to do than hear it live with Blomstedt conducting.

Antonin Dvorak (born in Bohemia, 1841; died in Prague, 1904)

Descriptions of this Symphony often mention the mood changes. It is beautifully sunny and feeling optimistic and then a minor key gradually takes the happiness down a peg or two. A bird like flute passage appears and dismisses any sad notes or memories. Dvorak loved nature and loved life. One cannot get away from that. Loving life means one has met the dark shadows of illness, betrayal, and death, yet one still goes on for the next bird song, the next absolute beauty. Dvorak would not compose a symphony so limited that the cruel truth is totally eliminated. Our life is  more than one aspect. This shining Symphony No. 8 encompasses our life in the round. His Adagio, the second movement, includes the ambivalent moods: will I be sad or happy about this world? It is strange and unfair, but it is my world. The movement finds its equilibrium; we balance. Balance can be peaceful and peace need not be boring. The third movement, Scherzo, combines the elegance of a waltz with the sense of the country which is lovely but sometimes raw. And then, we are rewarded. Dvorak plays for us and dances with us. It is something completely different which also, as we dance with him, seems to have been written specifically for me and you may think specifically for you and every individual in Davies Symphony Hall will know it is specifically for Antonin to be able to dance with us in person, in his country town. Dvorak gives us Nature’s own music as surrounding us, racing through us, as presented to us by the Conductor for all time signatures, Herbert Blomstedt.

ABOUT HERBERT BLOMSTEDT: He was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, July 11, 1927. He is now 95 years old. His parents, originally from Sweden, moved back there when Herbert was 2 years old. He began to study music in Sweden and later at the Juiliard School, New York. He led important orchestras from a young age. Music Director/or Principal Conductor of the Norrkoping Symphony Orchestra, 1954-1962; Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, 1962-1977; Swedish Radio Symphony, 1977-1982; Chief Conductor of the Dresdner Staatskapelle, 1975-1985. Throughout these years he made many recordings including the works of Richard Strauss, and the complete Symphonies of Beethoven and Schubert. In addition, he led his orchestras on international tours. He does not waste time in histrionic gestures. His conducting is an example of “anything more than the truth would be too much,” as stated by Robert Frost.

He became Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony, 1985-1995. He led the SFS on regular tours of Europe and Asia and won numerous award winning recordings for London/Decca. These included 2 Grammy awards, a Gramaphon award, and the Grand Prix du Disque plus awards from Belgium, Germany, and Japan.  When he ceased being the San Francisco Symphony’s full time leader, he became Principal Conductor with North German Radio Symphony, 1996-1998, and Principal Conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, 1996-2005. He is currently conductor Laureate of SFS, Honorary Conductor of the Bamberg Symphony, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony, Swedish Radio Symphony, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden.  HERBERT BLOMSTEDT will perform a program of Mozart with Emanuel Ax, in Philadelphia, PA, March 3-5. There are limited tickets for each concert. The availability ranges fro 26-30 tickets. Hop on a plane. You will be so happy to be there.

Making History: Leslie’s Dances in Russia, 1985

MOSCOW, 1985: BEGINNING OF TRANSITION

The phone rang at 5 a.m. It was 1985; spam calls had not been invented. I picked up the receiver. The caller said he was at the American Embassy in London, is this Leslie Friedman? Yes. He called to find out if I would be willing to travel to Russia to perform. I sat up. Yes. Are you sure you could do this? YES. He asked a few more questions which I do not remember. I interrupted him and said, “Russia is the Mecca of ballet. Of course I want to do it. When do I go?” The caller told me there were other posts that would like to have me come to perform and perhaps to teach. The caller was in charge of planning the presentation of American specialists like engineers and artists. He knew about my 1983-1984 work in India, Sri Lanka, Egypt, and Tunisia from reports sent to him by US diplomats in those places. The caller, Cal,* said that he would get back to me with the details of other posts and travel dates.

Cal called again. Hungary, Romania, and Spain invited me. None” of them had co-sponsored an American artist before this. There had been no cultural exchange with the USSR for 14 years. I would perform for an all-Russian audience of officials and artists. This was completely new. He did not have to tell me, but he did, that Russia, with its great ballet tradition might not know what to make of me, if they came at all.

Long lines of travelers were waiting to show their passports at the Moscow airport when I arrived, March 13. My papers accepted, I heard someone nearby ask if I were Leslie. It was the Cultural Attaché from the Embassy. I was ready to leave the airport, but first my suitcases needed to be searched and then kept for further inspection. My companion asked if I needed anything in the suitcases. Definitely: fluids and a case for contact lenses. Ted* said the Embassy kept supplies on hand; we could go there.

We got the needed items and looked into a ballroom. It was full of people sitting on folding chairs. I remember only men sitting there, looking half or entirely asleep. Their jackets hung over the backs of chairs; their heads rested on their hands draped over the chair in front of them. I asked Ted who they were. He said they were journalists awaiting news of who would be the new leader of the USSR. Chernenko had died a day and a half before. His death and funeral could have called off my program.

Ted said the sleepy writers knew that eventually Secretary of State George Schultz would appear and make the announcement. He asked me if I was ready to go. I asked him if we could stay. “How long do you want to wait?” he asked. “I would like to hear the announcement.” “You mean you’re interested?” “Yes, this is history, and I am here. If we can stay, let’s stay.” We waited. Nothing happened. Then, George Schultz appeared. The room was suddenly alert, chairs filled, jackets back on, all eyes turned toward Secretary Schultz. He said that he had “had a good meeting with Russian leaders. The new person heading their government will be Mikhail Gorbachev. I have met him. He is someone we can work with.” Secretary Schultz smiled. He beamed positive vibes.

Ted said, “Now I can take you to your hotel.” It was very cold outside. Ice and snow were on the sidewalks. Ted escorted me to my room. It was very small. Bunk beds. The window would not close. The shower had only cold water. Ted had said that Paul Newman had stayed in this hotel. I thought, definitely not in this room. I worried about icy muscles before dancing. The next morning, Ted arrived to drive me to the ambassador’s residence, Spaso House. He told me that visiting artists would normally perform at the residence for an American audience. I met the ambassador’s wife. Donna Hartman, a tall, beautiful, blonde lady, told me that I could do my stretches on the floor of their dining room. Mostly, I remember how good the carpet felt. She got down on the floor and did stretches with me. She asked about my hotel room. I told the truth. I said maybe I could move to another room. She invited me to stay there in their home with Ambassador Hartman and herself. I feel my eyes pop as I remember that moment. I slept in the Vice-President’s room in a wonderful, warm bed.

Before the program, I was introduced to Valukin, the artistic director of GITIS. I was scheduled to do a performance and lecture there the next day. GITIS is Russia’s crown jewel of the theater arts, revered for training choreographers, ballet dancers and folk ensembles. Valukin himself had trained there and became a star of the Bolshoi. After my presentation at GITIS, Valukin asked me to return to teach. A First for an American dancer.

Friendship House, a grand, pre-1917 relic, was to be my performance venue. It is the stage for foreign artists. I changed in a small room with a drapery for a door. Ted surprised me by walking in. There was barely room for one person, me, and one person’s stuff, my costumes and notes. Ted had decided there were things I needed to know and a few minutes before my performance was the best time to inform me. He said that one of their great ballerinas, Olga Lepeshinskaya, a Bolshoi star in the 1930s and ’40s, would introduce me, but there was no guarantee that she would show up. The invitees included artists, art administrators, the symphony orchestra, dancers from the Ballet, ballet students, Russian officials. He added that it would be an all-Russian audience; no Americans except the ambassador and Mrs. Hartman. The Russians might not want to come, and they might be told not to come. I told him that this is not what I need to hear at this time. He emphasized that it was important. I told him, “Please leave. Get out of my dressing room.” As I remember this, I feel nervous; his messages were so distracting. At the time, however, I was calm. Especially once he left.

Mme. Lepeshinskaya was onstage introducing me in Russian. It was a moment when everything was in harmony. The dancing went well. When I ended, the audience stood, applauded, even cheered. Mme. Lepeshinskaya praised me in loving comments. She looked into my eyes, held my hand, and told the audience they should follow my example, expanding ballet and expression to bring Russian Ballet into the present. That’s what the translator told me. Praise from a Prima; what a gift.

When I went backstage to the reception room, Valukin picked me up and swirled me around in the air. He was elated. He said I had “done what he had hoped for: showing that a dancer–an American!–could dance beautifully in this new dance.”

Ted accompanied me that night to the Embassy doctor. The unfinished wood floor had left an impression on me. I had many splinters in legs, feet, body. They hurt, but I was too happy to notice the doctor’s needles.

Then, I took the train to Leningrad for performances and meetings with Kirov ballerinas. I stayed in Consul General Charles Magee’s residence. After my Russian program was over, the Consul General told me that my program was so successful it was a significant element in getting a new cultural exchange agreement.

–Leslie Friedman

This article appeared in the Institute for Historical Studies publication, Vol.42, No. 3, Winter 2023. It appears here with permission of the Editor, Maria Sakovich.

*Name changed for publication. ^As Leslie has noted, GITIS, State Institute for Theatre Arts, is Russia’s preeminent training for theatrical arts. Since its founding in 1878 the school has expanded greatly and lived through various changes in name. GITIS is the longest-lived appellation and was incorporated into the 1991 change in status: “Russian Academy of Theater Arts-GITIS.”

Leslie is a modern dancer. “My early training was ballet with Mme. Victoria Cassan, an Englishwoman who was a soloist in Anna Pavlova’s company. Much later, I was offered a scholarship at the Alvin Ailey school and a place in the Martha Graham school’s professional training program. My choreography is musical and expressive. That means that some ballet people think it is modern dance and modern/ contemporary people think it is too balletic.” Editor’s Notes

 

 

Leif Ove Andsnes: Astonishing Piano Recital

The program for this recital on Sunday evening, January 22, began with unfamiliar works by Alexander Vustin, Lamento (1974); Leos janacek, Piano Sonata, 1.X.1905 (1905); Valentyn Silvestrov, Bagatelle, Opus 1, no.3 (2005).  After the first three came Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat major, Opus 110 (1821). Was this a reward for the audience which had to pay attention to three new-to-most solo piano works? Not exactly, though one could tell it was Beethoven coming into Davies Symphony Hall as soon as this extraordinary, great artist touched the first keys. Andsnes had looked deeply into Beethoven’s dual vision of happy and something different than happy that propels our lives.

Leif Ove Andsnes

While the first pieces were completely different musically, they shared a background and emotion: each one had been inspired by an act of resistance to a realm of political oppression. Andsnes quotes Vustin writing “aspects, such as style, material, dynamics, tone color and “emotional” character, are of secondary importance. The law which governs musical time may be expressed in numerical terms.” And, yet Lamento is a delicate, deeply felt and purely heard emotion in music. The composer attended a friend’s funeral; a bird sang throughout the event. The bird song plays simultaneously in opposition to the sadness. Though very brief, this music is a heart’s response to the tyranny of death and the tyranny of the Russian control of life. Andsnes comments in his program notes that seeing Vustin at the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival, founded by Andsnes, was a moving experience. He could see Vustin’s reactions to freedom of art in Norway, especially when listening to the music of Shostakovich.

Alexander Vustin, Composer (1943-2020)

Leos Janacek created his Piano Sonata, 1.X.1905 in reaction to the death of 20 year old Frantisek Pavlik, a Moravian who was participating in a protest. He was stabbed by a bayonet. Janacek was a Moravian. Where is or was Moravia? It has an ancient history as a major, medieval kingdom, Great Moravia. Going back into the 4th century, it was populated by Celtic and Germanic tribes. Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia all wanted its land; it was independent until became incorporated into the Kingdom of Bohemia. In 1526, the Austrian King, Ferdinand–he became Ferdinand I of the Holy Roman Empire–claimed it. Moravia became part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. After World War I, the map changed. Moravia and Bohemia became parts of Czechoslovakia. The region’s communities included Czechs speaking Czech language and Germans speaking German. Moravians within the Czech community were a minority. The troubles that led to Frantisek Pavlik’s death were over the Czech speaking population’s desire to have a university using their language. German speaking Moravians opposed it. Differences were settled, but not before Pavlik’s death.

Leos Janacek (1854-1928) with his wife, Zdenka, 1881.
Janacek had many career pursuits. One was collecting and publishing Moravian folk music. His first big success as a composer was the premiere of his opera, Jenufa, in Brno. The opera was set in Moravia, and the home town music lovers gave it great support. This Sonata brought attention to Pavlik, a carpenter’s apprentice. By writing music in his memory, Janacek embraced him as a folk hero to be added to the Moravian consciousness of their identity and long history. Leif Ove Andsnes did not stand up between the first pieces on his concert. Instead, he waited in silence before beginning the next music. One could sense the intensity of Andsnes’ feeling for the oppressed and those who resist.

Valentyn Silvestrov, born 1937, Kyiv, Ukraine,

Before 2022, many Americans may have known as little about Ukraine as they might have known about Moravia. Russia’s invasion in February, 2022, changed that. The war is in headlines daily; many, many thousands have died; millions have become refugees. Valentyn Silvestrov, born 1937, in Kyiv (previously known as Kiev) escaped the war at age 85. He now lives in Berlin. Andsnes gave Silvestrov’s Bagatelle, Opus 1, no. 3 the expert treatment it deserves. The Russian establishment did not approve of Silvestrov’s style when he was a conservatory student. Instead of capitulating to fit in, he retreated into his private life and began writing music that pleased him. It was a nearly Romantic style. Judging from this composition, his music is sensitive and expressive. He wrote, “I do not write new music. My music is a response to send an echo of what already exists.” This does not mean it is not original. It means he writes music. It has been called post-modern and neo-classical. It is music and really does not need a pigeon hole. Silvestrov’s music has emotion, drama, and delicacy. I was surprised and delighted to hear the Bagatelle take us to a brief moment of the blues. The melody picked up the audience like the breeze lifts a boat gliding along a lake. Silvestrov stated that his music is “Not a philosophy, not a system of beliefs, but the song of the world about itself, and at the same time a musical testament to existence.” Silvestrov’s opposition to the invaders of his country can be found in his music. His choral work, Diptych, 2014, expresses patriotism and is dedicated to Serhly Nigoyan, an Armenian-Ukrainian killed in 2014, the beginning of the current catastrophe. The music is for the 1845 poem, Testament, written by Taras Shevchenko.

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Leif Ove Andsnes paused after playing Silvestrov’s Bagatelle and then changed the world of sound with Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat major, Opus 110. It is shorter than other sonatas and on first impression, it seems to be so pleasant. It is pleasant, but there is more. The first movement is Moderato cantabile molto expressivo; it sings. We have lyrical charm. Beethoven was a nature lover; in this movement one might almost see a green hillside and daffodils. I wanted to write we might see him skipping in the park, but that is not moderato. It is a delight. Where is it going? The second movement is a scherzo Allegro molto. Now we have still more movement and more bright, happy harmonies. There are playful folk songs. This music takes us away from Beethoven’s real world: Napoleonic Wars, blindness, chronic illness. He and we are taking time to breathe, to relish being alive. The last two movements are played without a break. Now Beethoven gives us life in the round. Sadness flows over us. Our thoughts are serious but cannot find the remedy for sorrows. The third movement is Adagio ma non troppo; we go slowly into the experiences and feelings which stretch us and can dominate us with regret and even pain. The last movement, Fuga: Allegro ma non troppo, lets us rise up but not too much. We will see beyond today’s pain. The music, so beautiful, ascends gently. Somehow, we are alive and grateful to be so.

Antonin Dvorak (18411904)

Poetic Tone Pictures, Opus 85, by Dvorak, is a surprise. It is Dvorak music for solo piano, a rare phenomenon. Leif Ove Andsnes has made it a mission to perform this wonderful series of brief, expressive pieces. Andsnes says it is “the great forgotten cycle of 19th century piano music.” It is definitely a great experience to be able to hear 13 Dvorak pieces. Each one is about 5 minutes, has a title, as Dvorak described them in a letter, and each one is a Tone Picture of places, seasons, emotions. There is Twilight Way, In the Old Castle, Reverie, Goblins’ Dance, Bacchanalia, On the Holy Mountain. And, that’s only six. It was fascinating, touching, and even entertaining. The variety of musical structures combined with expressive emotion and evocative style was a rich musical experience. The audience fully appreciated the Poetic Tone Pictures; they jumped from their seats and gave Leif Ove Andsnes at least 5 curtain calls.

Andsnes acknowledged the thrilling response from the audience with two encores. The second one happened because after the first the non-stop applause continued without a pause. His first selection was Ballade of Revolt, by Norwegian composer Harald Saeverud. This music of struggle begins quietly and ends in an avalanche of refusal to bend to oppression. It had an enormous impact. Andsnes closed with Chopin’s Mazurka, Opus 30, No. 4. Chopin’s mazurkas are at the heart of Polish culture. The Poles, dominated by Nazi Germany and then by Soviet Russia, struggled to stay anchored in their culture. Leif Ove Andsnes kept true to the theme he projected through the first pieces on his program. He is a brilliant, extraordinary artist.

 

 

 

 

San Francisco Symphony: Power & Versatility

The San Francisco Symphony demonstrated its expressive depth and powerful musicality playing inventive “new” music by Jorg Widmann and inventive slightly older music by Gustav Mahler, on January 21, 2023. Robin Ticciati was the superb conductor. He succeeded in seeming, first, a conductor devoted to and promoting new works and then became a great Mahler exponent. He was equal to the challenge in San Francisco; a population of Mahler-ites thanks to Music Director Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas. Maestro Ticciati is the music director of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and music director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera.

Jorg Widmann, Composer

Widmann’s Violin Concerto occupied the first half of the concert. It demonstrates the composer’s interests in varying emotions, colors, tonality. Widmann’s Violin Concerto called upon the violin soloist, Alina Ibragimova, to play straight through the 30 minute piece with tremendous vigor, emotion, and the stunning, wonderful, all embracing philosophy which is heard in Widmann’s creation. The concerto could not have a more fitting soloist. Ms Ibragimova embodied the very three dimensional world of sound. There are two brief moments of silence which intensify the the sound through its absence. The San Francisco Symphony was with Ms Ibragimova as though the music had grown organically especially for them. The music demanded focus from its audience in order to hear the layers of music and accompany it on the many paths that made its journey. The concerto was premiered in 2007, Essen, Germany. This was its first performance in San Francisco. The Alban Berg Violin Concerto may be an ancestor of Widmann’s; however, Mr. Widmann’s concerto comes to Earth 88 years later than Mr. Berg’s. There is so much more to consider, consolidate, commune with in the look and feel of our world even though our loves and human lives carry forward similar longings. All this was compressed and still audible in Widmann’s blazing work.

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911): Composer

Then, it was Mahler’s Symphony No. 4. It is called the sunniest of Mahler’s symphonies. It is a Mahler symphony so there are recognizable meetings with love, country folk, heaven on earth, Death and the Devil. Mahler is about life in its largest, most world encompassing ways of expressing the back bone of human existence and the beyond 20/20 human vision. While this No. 4 visits the country folk, it is not for buffoonery. The tune of the violin is pleasant but cannot be brushed off because of the very quiet, pianissimo way it presents itself. The sections of the orchestra take turns interrupting or interpreting one another’s rhythms and melodies: from the clarinets and bassoons to a horn, then a bassoon, and then cellos and basses carry the musical thoughts away. It could resemble athletic practice on a field passing a ball while running and dodging, jumping in time, and crossing over the line of runners. Michael Steinberg, the late, great music writer, points out that Mahler had wonderful titles for his movements but did not like “to betray them to the rabble of critics and listeners” who would not understand their meanings. Mahler’s name for the Scherzo, for example, was Freund Hein spielt auf (Death Strikes Up – Freund Hein being the evil one in a fairy tale).

The Adagio could lull the listeners into a peaceful but absent minded state. There are warnings. The tempting melody is punctuated with a quiet tolling sound from the basses and even quieter harmonies from cellos and bases.

Ying Fang, Soprano

A solo voice appears suddenly. Soprano Ying Fang entered the stage quietly to sit near the percussionists. Her voice is arresting, beautiful, and, in this context, somewhat alarming. Her performance must have stopped everyone in their mental tracks. Mahler gave the vocalist a very silly song to sing, and yet the three movements that preceded it were intentionally directed to this goal. As the Symphony No. 4 began with bells, bells return. Mahler chose a Bavarian folk song for his uplifting conclusion. It is Der Himmel hungt voll Geigen (Heaven is Hung with Violins). The song lets us know how well the Saints live in Heaven. There are “Good greens of all kinds” and “Good apples, good pears, and good grapes!” If meat is what you want, “deer or rabbit,/they run free in the streets.” It seems that the good things of Earth are in plenty in Heaven. That includes the finest music which fulfills its purpose: Saint “Cecilia and her family/are first rate court musicians!/The heavenly voices/gladden our senses,/and everything wakes to joy.” If you know people who think Mahler is always tragic or difficult to understand, do a good deed and take them to Symphony No. 4.