Tag Archives: Esa-Pekka Salonen

IGOR LEVIT IGNITES DAVIES HALL; Part I, Beethoven

Igor Levit, the astonishing, internationally celebrated pianist, came to San Francisco for a two week residency with the San Francisco Symphony. He performed four different programs plus an open rehearsal. The last of the four was a recital with surprises throughout. It added up to eight performances. Each one was remarkable for Levit’s brilliance as a pianist, his deep knowledge of the repertoire, and his musical choices. The Hedgehogs attended three of the four: all Beethoven, June 17; Busoni’s immense piano concerto, June 22; a recital with works by Brahms, Fred Hersch, Wagner, and Liszt, June 27. We were unable to hear the chamber music concert with members of the SFS. It must have been very fine, but our three musical banquets were quite filling for hearing, seeing, and thinking. In fact, they were also entertaining. This is the first of three articles about Igor Levit’s performances.

Igor Levit describes himself as “Citizen. European. Pianist.”

The first concert series offered two of the most well known Beethoven masterpieces: the Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Opus 73, called Emperor (1809), and the Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Opus 55, Eroica (1803). It was good to start our experience with Levit with music that is grand, complex, inventive and which we have heard before. I am not suggesting one could hum along, only that a listener’s memory might be able to imagine what Levit was doing with these landmarks of Western civilization.

He climbed inside the music. His partnership with the SF Symphony was a great match. The SFS, conducted by Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, played with strength and truth. It was not backing up the Visiting Artist; they were partners in creating their understanding of Beethoven’s music. As Levit stated in an interview with Corinna da Fonseca-Wolfheim in the SFS program book, “my goal is not to sound like Beethoven. What I do all day long is try to understand, why did Beethoven decide to write a piece this way and not the other way? But at the end of the day, I’m the one who plays it, not him. So, the goal is kind of to have it both ways.”

The “Emperor” concerto premiered, in 1809. Musicologists have considered it the apex or fulfillment of Beethoven’s “heroic era,” though this concerto came a year after the 1802-1808 noted as an era of prodigious creativity. Beethoven found a totally original way to open the concerto. The stunning beginning would awaken the audience to the realization that they were experiencing music presented in a new way, and they would need to listen in a new way, too.

Ludwig Van Beethoven, Composer (1770-1827)

The first movement is the longest Beethoven wrote. It is inventive in every facet. Curiously, it is the increasing presence of dissonance that serves as an audio seasoning and builds excitement. Beethoven then brings in quiet moments which stand out even more in contrast with the vigorous new movement. Levit let the Adagio un poco mosso run right into the final movement, Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo which became a frequent way to perform this concerto. The first movement is very long; this combination balances the music in real time. It spurs the music audibly onward and upward. The slower movement presents two chorales; first one for the piano, and then one in the orchestra. There is just a slight change of rhythm in the piano’s accompaniment. Being slightly off of the orchestra’s rhythm focuses the piano carrying the melody.

As Beethoven rounds the course he created for himself and the “Emperor,” he allows a breath of silence and lowers the pitch of the music. The finale allows a new theme to take a powerful bow in the appropriate tempo. Now, a Beethoven special: a romping German folk dance. The timpani takes over in another quiet moment, and there is an enormous burst of bright stars at the end.

Watching Levit perform is nearly so interesting as hearing him play. Fortunately, his quirks do not go on long enough to take attention away from the glorious music he makes. His first gesture was to hold up his left arm high and a little to the left with palm up but not flatly up. It seemed to express “there we are,” or maybe “this is the music right here.” His gestures and looks were often related to the music and his partners, Conductor Salonen and the SFS. He looked at the orchestra players either to acknowledge their playing or perhaps to send a mental message. He turned his head to see Salonen. Occasionally, he looked out to the audience and up to the audience in the choir loft as well. He leaned back to stretch his legs under the piano. Although one Bay Area writer observed that Levit was doing these motions because he felt so good about being in San Francisco, I saw him do the same exercises/expressions/quirks in a video of him performing the “Emperor” at the 2020 Nobel prize concert. It is him. Why would he pretend?

After many, many curtain calls, Igor Levit played one of Felix Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words, Opus 30, “Consolation.” It was calming, quiet, heartfelt, beautiful. The audience, gasping, cheering, and applauding kept clapping, but he was gone for now. Mr. Levit’s residency was off to a tremendous start

Esa-Pekka Salonen, Music Director, San Francisco Symphony.

The San Francisco Symphony was stellar and brilliant performing the “Eroica.” Music Director/Conductor Salonen kept the orchestra in carefully ordered form. This symphony is written so that the audience cannot anticipate what will happen next in the music. Even though the “Eroica” keeps the classical form of four movements, what Beethoven does within the form is new. The second movement, “Marcia funebre: Adagio assai,” has the funereal feeling and pace. While this Symphony No. 3 was composed, Europe was on fire with revolutions and imperial wars. There would be many military burials and also soldiers with dire injuries visible in all towns. Conductor Salonen did not let the music sit in sadness. He kept it active and alive, as much the march, not only  a funeral. That approach meant that it was not a huge departure when the third movement, Scherzo: Allegro vivace, rushes on the scene. The music propels itself as though on quickly moving feet. At the final movement, the theme splits itself in two directions which grow into twelve variations. Multiple layers of music and multiple actions make an amazingly full, lively world. This is where Beethoven meant to go. The audience was treated to a fresh, exciting, Symphony No. 3. Salonen and the SFS made it new.

 

AMAZING NIGHT AT THE SF SYMPHONY: ESA-PEKKA SALONEN, YUJA WANG, SF SYMPHONY, NEW CONCERTO BY MAGNUS LINDBERG…

The San Francisco Symphony presented an amazing evening of music, October 13, 2022. Esa Pekka Salonen, Music Director, still seems new since the pandemic separated him from his audience. Now that he and the SFS are back performing full seasons, the excitement of his leadership and creativity is nearly tangible in Davies Symphony Hall. The program on the 13th was the premiere of Piano Concerto #3 (2022), by Magnus Lindberg performed with the stunning piano soloist, Yuja Wang. The concert opened with Helios Overture, Opus 17 (1903), blissful music by Carl Nielsen. Bela Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra (1943, rev. 1945) was the beautiful and mysterious closing event.

Composer Carl Nielsen

Helios Overture swept the audience away. It is a self-contained, 13 minute, inspired beauty. The SFS performed with conviction and the musicians’ invisible but superb technical prowess. Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen seemed to breathe in concert with the music by the brilliant Danish composer, Carl Nielsen. We arrived in our seats with only moments to spare. This meant that I did not open the program book and learn that there is a subject to the Overture and that it was the sun. At first, I thought it was the ocean. Nielsen had debated the use of programmatic themes in music. Should there be a suggested story or image? He preferred not. And yet, on a trip to Athens with his wife, the heat and sun enveloped his musical imagination. His note on it in a letter to another Danish composer, Thomas Laub, explains his careful steps to program-light. Pun not intended, but it will stay. “My overture describes the movement of the sun through the heavens from morning to evening, but it is only called Helios and no explanation is necessary. What do you think?” What the audience and this writer thought was “Why do I not already know this music?”  Listening, one feels in touch with the universe, caught up in the power and peace of light. Thinking back to Thursday, I think I heard the audience catch its breath and sigh.

Composer Magnus Lindberg

Magnus Lindberg and Esa-Pekka Salonen are both Finnish, were born only 3 days apart, and were close friends while studying composition in the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki. Mr. Lindberg established a reputation for fine compositions of great complexity. He explores extreme rhythms played on top of one another. In order to make his music continue to raise the bar for  intensely complex sound and timing, he invented computer programs to go beyond what humans perceive on their own. In some ways, the Piano Concerto #3 approaches classical ways, but they are Lindberg’s translation of classical.

Yuja Wang, Concert Pianist

There is no doubt that his decision to write the Concerto for Yuja Wang to perform was important to the identity of the music. Ms Wang plays the piano with strength. In her performance, it was clear that she was catching all of the directions of the changing and over lapping rhythms. It seemed as though she kept a beat in her head and others in her fast fingers and even in her feet which were dressed in high heel shoes with pom poms on the toes. Yuja Wang presents herself as a devil may care fashionista beauty. She can do that because she is the absolute Ace of pianists. I cannot imagine this Concerto without her. In their onstage conversation after the end of all of the performance, Mr. Lindberg and Ms. Wang offered more descriptions to the audience. They had made edits in the score during their rehearsals. The Piano Concerto #3 could actually be three concerti as each of the three movements are distinct in their sound and structure. It was fascinating, thrilling music performed with the height of musical intelligence. Mr. Lindberg says that the orchestra is his favorite instrument. He certainly uses all of it in every way through unknown dimensions. We need to hear it again!

Composer Bela Bartok, 1927

Bela Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra has a dramatic “back story.” Bartok was in his native Hungary. The fascist governments in Europe had taken over. He wanted to leave but remained to take care of his mother. When she passed away, 1939, he and his family left for America as soon as possible. He arrived in 1940.  In America he was broke, and his health began to go downhill. He had leukemia. His condition and his poverty meant he had to stay in a hospital. Two of his Hungarian friends, Joseph Szigeti, violinist, and Fritz Reiner, conductor, were also in the US. They urged Serge Koussevitzky, Boston Symphony conductor, to help Bartok, and he did. He offered $1000 as a commission for a new work. Bartok would not accept it as charity, but Koussevitzky was smart. He told Bartok that he had to give him $500 before the piece was written and the other half when a new piece was completed. It worked to put Bartok, now terribly weak, back to work. A concerto for an orchestra may seem a contradiction in terms as the usual concerto singles out one instrument playing solos intermittently, with or against the full orchestra. Bartok structured this work so that many instruments of the orchestra would be featured, often  in “couples.” He employed the sounds and individuality of the bassoons, oboes, flutes, trumpets, clarinets to create the architecture of the music. As one would expect, the final composition is completely his own. Bartok apparently was not a fan of Shostakovich, but the Russian composer was much in favor in the US, in part because of the alliance between Russia and the US. In the fourth movement, Interrupted Intermezzo: Allegretto, what Bartok called “brutal band music which is derided, ridiculed by the orchestra. After the band has gone away, the melody resumes its waltz–only a little bit more sadly than before.” This piece became an enormous success, loved by audiences and musicians. It has five movements and his “night music” appears especially in Elegy, the third movement. This Concerto has a sense of mystery running through it, beautiful music but with a touch of off center, ill at ease uncertainty. The journey through all the movements ends with an uplifting, positive feeling of celebration. The audience at the premiere cheered him. According to Bartok, Koussevitzky said it was “‘the best orchestra piece of the last 25 years.'” The music is pure magic.

 

 

 

Esa-Pekka Salonen & SF Symphony: Explore, Disrupt, Create

The San Francisco Symphony’s audience had an exciting encounter with Music Director Designate Esa-Pekka Salonen on Thursday, February 27. The program included Beethoven’s Overture to King Stephen, Opus 117 (1811); Salonen’s own Violin Concerto (2009); Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 5, Opus 50 (1922). Repeated on the 28th and 29th, the program presented three big works each of which had muscular qualities that shook up classical expectations.

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Beethoven wrote Overture to King Stephen for a play by a German playwright, August von Kotzbue. The playwright was also a lawyer and journalist who was assassinated by a theology student who accused him of being a spy for the Russians. King Stephen is considered the founder of modern Hungary, late 10th to early 11th century. The reader may be excused if unfamiliar with the play; it is known mostly for what Beethoven created for it. It is an unusual piece of music. There are dramatic, long rests. There are themes that grow from Hungarian dances. There is intriguing syncopation, a rhythmic motivation for Hungarian dance. In addition to being completely different all on its own, Overture to King Stephen, written more than ten years before the Ninth Symphony, seems to offer musical predictions of what will come. There is even a theme suggestive of the Ode to Joy.  Like the other selections on the program and befitting for the Overture of a play, this work presents a sense of drama that captures the imagination.

Violinist Leila Josefowicz performs Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Violin Concerto with the San Francisco Symphony and Salonen conducting, February 27, 2020 at Davies Symphony Hall

Maestro Salonen composed his Violin Concerto for Ms Leila Josefowicz. A much honored artist, to say she is a dynamic performer is an understatement. The Concerto begins with nearly violent bowing which quickly repeats many times the same sounds. The qualities expressed by the work shift from orchestra section to section, sometimes led by the orchestra and sometimes by the violin, but the violin still dominates. In addition to being a master work for orchestra and soloist, it is an Olympic event of the physicality of making music. In its slow movement, the colors flow through the orchestra while a timpani insists on maintaining its beat. “I decided to cover as wide a range of expression as I could imagine over the four movements of the concerto: from the virtuosic and flashy to the aggressive and brutal, from the meditative and static to the nostalgic and autumnal,” says Esa-Pekka Salonen of his Violin Concerto. Surely its energy punches the music forward. There is a barely restrained explosion which is anticipated but still shocks with its sudden presence. Salonen’s Concerto is disruptive of form and style. Written for the classical orchestra, it takes the possible sounds, shakes them, steps out of line, and makes its own dance. It is not a shy, introspective dance. It is out there, in the open, daring but not especially caring if anyone else takes the dare. The San Francisco Symphony seemed to revel in it.

Carl Nielsen (1865-1931)

Danish composer Carl Nielsen began life in a large, poor family. He discovered music on his own at age three. He found that he could get different pitches from the sticks in the woodpile depending on their length and thickness. Throughout his life, he explored music from its most basic sources to the grandeur of his symphonies. A scholarship to the Copenhagen  Conservatory to study piano and violin began his understanding of music theory. He supported himself by performing violin and conducting in orchestras in the Tivoli Gardens, the Royal Chapel, the Royal Theater, Copenhagen Music Society, and Music Society Orchestra in Gothenburg, Sweden. His Symphony No. 5 is fantastically interesting and also dramatic. At first the music is anxious, and the anxiety is contagious to those who listen. The adagio is sensual and creamy. It is dangerous to get caught up in the adagio because the timpani will interrupt. In Nielsen’s symphonies there is a feeling of the confrontation of different poles, different energies combat for space. There may be a peace negotiation, but neither side will give in. A gift to his audience: after the changes of key alter our focus, the music rewards us by nodding, “yes.”

This was a triumphant program for both the SFS and its future Music Director. Watching them work together is thrilling.

Photo of San Francisco Symphony, Leila Josefowicz, Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting by Brandon Patoc, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony.

Esa-Pekka Salonen Debuts as Newly Named Director SF Symphony

A completely full house at Davies Symphony Hall, January 19, 2019, greeted Esa-Pekka Salonen with applause and cheers before he even reached the podium. This was his first performance with the San Francisco Symphony after being named Michael Tilson Thomas’ successor as Music Director of the SFS. Although he had led the orchestra previously, there was a feeling in the house that this was something different, a time to listen and watch intently for hints of what is ahead for San Francisco.

Esa-Pekka Salonen addressing the SF audience at the Sound Box

The program featured Also sprach Zarathustra, by Richard Strauss (1896) and Four Legends from the Kalevala, by Jean Sibelius (1896). The West Coast Premiere of Metacosmos Anna Thorvaldsdottir (2017) opened the concert.

Richard Strauss

Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra) is familiar to many as the theme music of the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey which opened in 1968. Being the theme of a hugely popular movie has pluses and minuses. On the plus side is the immense, world wide audience now exposed to the music. On the possibly negative side is the permanent association of the movie and the music making it difficult to think of one without the other. 2001, tragically, now has other associations, as does 1968, a year of war, assassinations, political turmoil. The SF Symphony’s performance of the thrilling music was so effective that the audience was totally involved and could not have pondered anything else. R. Strauss took a work by Friedrich Nietzsche as his inspiration for the music. Nietzsche had as his inspiration Zarathustra, a Persian philosopher from the 6th century B.C.E.  After isolating himself from society, Zarathustra sees a sunrise and realizes he must rejoin his world. R. Strauss wrote that he intended his music to transmit “the evolution of the human race from its origin.” It is a roller coaster ride from the stratosphere to Earth and back again. If this is humanity, it has endless pitfalls and triumphs and mysteries. This is music that should be experienced as the SF Symphony played it, no movie required, lifting the listeners, opening their eyes as they let go of the safety rail and ride.

Jean Sibelius, 1913

Four Legends from the Kalevala is a suite of pieces representing episodes in the Finnish epic story. A young man, Lemminkainen, has fabulous adventures as he hunts, finds love, battles, and defies death. Each episode has a different character and sound: Lemminkainen and the Maidens of the Island; Lemminkainen in Tuonela; The Swan of Tuonela; Lemminkainen’s Return. The writing creates a deeply colored and emotional atmosphere more than representing specific narrative actions. The encounter with the Maidens of the Island begins with an announcement suitable to opening the entire suite and ends with carefree, sensuous dancing. In Tuonela, Lemminkainen begins his quest to kill the Swan of Tuonela but is killed himself instead. In the Finnish myths, Tuonela is death’s habitat. As in many epics, the hero has a polar opposite, a blind cowherd who manages to overcome the hero. Lemminkainen’s mother finds her son’s body and is able to bring him back to life. The tension in this movement comes forth in intense harmony that leads to the music of a solo cello. In the epic, the Swan of Tuonela swims in dark water of a large river. The Swan sings. The music in this movement is exquisite and strange. The string sections are composed in 13 different parts on top of each other and from that complex, but unified sound comes the voice of a solo English horn. It is eerily beautiful. The Journey home unifies the different aspects of the music and introduces a rondo which brings all the adventures together. The work demands and richly rewards attention. This was an extraordinary performance by the SFS. The musicians played themselves into the mysterious world of the Kalevala giving their audience a superb, personal experience of a distant world. The audience stood, applauding for the Music Director designate to return for more bows. This event promises a close creative partnership of orchestra, conductor, and audience.

For more on Sibelius’ Swan of Tuonela, see post on Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony at    livelyfoundation.org/wordpress/?p=1073