Monthly Archives: October 2025

Higgins, Grieg, Tchaikovsky: Never Old

The San Francisco Symphony presented an extraordinary concert at Davies Symphony Hall, October 3-5. Is it possible that music lovers love to critique the music that we love? Maybe it is just Opera fans who talk about old war horses. The program sizzled opening with a new piece by Timothy Higgins, Principal Trombone in the SFS since 2008. He has left the SFS to become the Principal Trombone in the Chicago Symphony.

Market Street, 1920s, had its world premiere this weekend. It has two elements for the music. Higgins described the tone of the music fitting the black and white pictures of SF streets with cars traveling around Market Street. There is also an argument. Two individuals take up opposite sides in SF’s issues, especially about alcohol. SF police, it is said, were told to look away from speakeasies and bootleggers. San Francisco’s history includes resistance to the federal government’s decisions. The music also represents “academic” leaning music and the more popular. There are jazz passages that give the music a rhythmic kick. There is no solution to these arguments. Sometime arguing is an athletic sport. This eight minute piece was a happy introduction to the evening. Well done, Tim Higgins.  Photo: Tim Higgins talks about his premiere work.

The San Francisco Symphony with Gustavo Gimeno, conductor, and Javier Perianes, piano, perform Timothy Higgins’ “Market Street, 1920s” a SF Symphony Commission and World Premiere, Edvard Grieg’s “Piano Concerto,” and Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No.5.” At Davies Symphony Hall on Friday night, October 3, 2025.Photo by Stefan Cohen

Edvard Grieg (1843 – 1907) He composed his magnificent Piano Concerto in A minor, Opus 16, in 1868. The first time I heard it, I was surprised that it was Grieg’s work. I had heard his music that was influenced by Norwegian folk music. This is something completely different. It is a wonderful Concerto. The opening of the music, Allegro molto moderato, seems so natural that every note is where it has to be. It shows its lyrical side as well as the strength of the music in its cadenza. The second movement, Adagio, has amazing delicacy. The notes have no weight. I hear them as though it is gentle snow falling. No clumps, no ice, just the lovely snow flakes. I know they are each made of unique designs even though I cannot see their always different presence. The final movement, Allegro moderato molto e marcato, is also something unusual but perfectly the right music. Grieg’s interest in Norwegian folk music shows its character. The movement has the music equivalent of a play within a play. The movement creates another concerto within this movement. Grieg plays on with another cadenza and a false exit. Very new and something to surprise one’s ears. The rest of this mini-me concerto begins slowly, but Grieg has other directions to fulfill this brilliant concert: lots of violins and trumpets. The musical marriage made with two so unlike instruments lifts the concerto and thrills the audience. The soloist was Javier Perianes. He has performed in most venues you can think of around the world. He records for Harmonia Mundi. His performance was exactly right just as every note was the right note. Perianes treated Grieg right just as he deserved. Pianist Javier Perianes photo below. Photo by Stefan Cohen

The San Francisco Symphony with Gustavo Gimeno, conductor, and Javier Perianes, piano, perform Timothy Higgins’ “Market Street, 1920s” a SF Symphony Commission and World Premiere, Edvard Grieg’s “Piano Concerto,” and Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No.5.” At Davies Symphony Hall on Friday night, October 3, 2025.

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 – 1893) The Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Opus 64, was created in 1888. This has been a beloved, moving symphony since it premiered. In the 1890s, it was attacked for being “ultra-modern” and even for Tchaikovsky’s ancestry. “while in the last movement, the composer’s Calmuck blood got the better of him, and slaughter, dire and bloody swept across the storm-driven score.” Tchaikovsky was not related to this ethnic group in Russia which was actually Buddhist. Fortunately, the composer overcame a depressive attitude toward the 5th Symphony which he had loved as much as its audiences loved it. There are several themes that appear more than once throughout the symphony. It begins with Andante-allegro con anima. It seems to be dark with its clarinets, but Tchaikovsky lets a lovely waltz interrupt the unhappy theme. The end of the first movement has a rough feeling. Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza, the second movement, truly moves onward with a charming attitude, but the theme in the first movement invades the second movement. The third movement, Valse: Allegro moderato, dances its way to sunshine and no dark clouds. The signal for the end is the theme from the first movement moving into the springy waltz. The closing movement seems to know how to tame the first movement’s theme. It takes away its threatening just when the finale begins a march rhythm that sets the music into a serious drama. The ending is triumphant. It is a sunny day. Photo below Conductor Gustavo Gimeno, photo by Stefan Cohen

The San Francisco Symphony with Gustavo Gimeno, conductor, and Javier Perianes, piano, perform Timothy Higgins’ “Market Street, 1920s” a SF Symphony Commission and World Premiere, Edvard Grieg’s “Piano Concerto,” and Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No.5.” At Davies Symphony Hall on Friday night, October 3, 2025.

Conductor Gustavo Gimeno led the orchestra to a great performance. He has a graceful way of conducting and is totally in the music. His presence in the music also helped produce excellent performances by all the musicians with solos or featuring of their sections. It was a magnificent evening.

HOFESH SHECHTER on the RED CARPET

There was great excitement for the Red Carpet, the new dance from choreographer Hofesh Shechter. “For me, a red carpet first evokes thoughts of glamour.” However, the movements and appearances of the dancers are not glamorous. The choreographer also describes it as “grotesque.” Both are fitting. The major patron of the Paris Opera is Chanel. The costume designs come from CHANEL, and the dancers are from the Paris Opera Ballet. Shechter juxtaposes glam and art; which does the audience want most? Is the glam a sham? The dancers roll their bodies, step over each other, drag themselves or others. They form a circle around the stage with arms stretched high or arms bent in running position. This is more like a mosh pit; dancers are on top of each other or using their arms to create a form. The music came from live musicians who were on the stage but not continually seen.

I wonder whether Shechter is ironic as he speaks about glam vs. art. Can they be the same? Is he noticing what it takes to achieve glam or art? One can certainly do what is claimed to be glam art. Shechter says, “In contemporary dance, the stage is filled with references and expectations…I don’t believe the role of dance is to provide solutions. A ballet must remain open, unresolved; that’s its beauty.”

Paris Opera Ballet’s North American Premiere of Red Carpet by Hofesh Shechter at Cal Performance Zellerbach Hall, photo credit: Chris Hardy

Shechter may have noticed the use of the arms in Alvin Ailey’s Company. In Revelations, the dancers are in a sunburst shape with different sets of arms opening with start-stop rhythm. Probably the first dancer/choreographer to gather dancers in that shape and set their arms opening was Anna Sokolow. “Her choreography of intertwining groups with reaching arms influenced Alvin Ailey (who danced in her Poem) and Jerome Robbins.” Poem was Sokolow’s taboo challenging dance in which dancers touched each other: “her dancers actually touched, sometimes in what could be homosexual embraces.”*  I am not suggesting his movements were taken from other choreographers, but visual material lives on. In Red Carpet, the movements seem to be decadent folk dance or natural movements which are alien to technique, ballet or contemporary technique, yet it takes some training to let go. Crawl. Bend over with your back parallel to the floor. Curiously, there were no leaps. Occasionally sort of a hop on one foot with the other leg bent at the knee. There was also a certain version of belly dancing.

Paris Opera Ballet’s North American Premiere of Red Carpet by Hofesh Shechter at Cal Performance Zellerbach Hall, photo credit: Chris Hardy

Contemporary dance traditionally undid traditions, but there is danger in not doing, let’s say Cunningham work, when it reigned and earned grants for the followers. Shechter’s Red Carpet may introduce new ways to produce dance. The first part of Red Carpet showed the dancers in Chanel costumes; someone seated near me commented that they looked like outfits in a resale shop. Being supported by Chanel gives the event glam, but is that superficial pretending? I think that Shechter knew what he is doing. The dancers perform in groups; often it is all thirteen dancers or a group of four or five. I cannot remember more than one or two times when a dancer stood apart from the group, but he will soon be absorbed by the rest. There is also pas de deux dancing, but it happens within the entire group. The costumes make different presences in which the audience can see them, but they are still in the group. Sometimes they are doing the same movements as others or expose their different movements within the group. One costume was a lacy gown with one part of the skirt hanging like a short column half in front of the legs and the other half missing. There was a black dress which looks sequined from a distance. It also had missing spaces of dress.

Paris Opera Ballet’s North American Premiere of Red Carpet by Hofesh Shechter at Cal Performance Zellerbach Hall, photo credit: Chris Hardy

The second half of Red Carpet alters the vision. The dancers are in colored white-flesh tights and body covers more or less. Some have Bermuda shorts length; others more. In this part of the dance, a group of 5 work on the floor rolling and reaching. There seems to be communication through the bodies though they are not always connected to others. There were a few times when it seemed to me they looked like Grecian figures on their vases. Were these dancers armed or simply digging into life? As Shechter said, solutions are not to be found

Paris Opera Ballet’s North American Premiere of Red Carpet by Hofesh Shechter at Cal Performance Zellerbach Hall

One special performer was the giant chandelier. It went up very high and also lowered to just above the stage floor. It did not crash like its cousin the chandelier in The Phantom of the Opera, but it had character. The Phantom’s chandelier was a replica of the chandelier of the Paris Opera House. It would not dare to crash upon the thirteen dancers from the Paris Opera Ballet.

The excitement continued throughout the performance. Red Carpet will be remembered as we await the next Shechter production.

*The Hedgehog, The International Arts Review, Vol. 5, No. 1, November, 2010) pp 4-5.