Music I'm Listening to: Recent San Francisco Symphony concerts

Unusually, I recently had three San Francisco Symphony concerts on three successive Friday nights, May 16, May 23, and May 30. It's always hard to write about music but particularly hard to after the fact, so just a few highlights here, as a couple of weeks have passed already.... 

On May 16, cellist Johannes Moser joined the SF Symphony for the world premiere of Before We Fall, a cello concerto by Anna Thorvaldsdottir. It was a rather abstract piece – the sort that's difficult to process on first hearing – but rich in texture and I thought it interesting enough that I'd enjoy hearing it again or finding a recording of it. As always, Moser was superb. 

The program began with Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, by Ralph Vaughn Williams. Conductor Dalia Stasevska handled it beautifully, I thought, without rushing but also without letting it get too lush. It was as satisfying as any recording I've ever heard of it. This was the second time I've had the privilege of attending a concert with Stasevska conducting. She seems to have established a real connection with the San Francisco musicians despite being an occasional guest conductor. She's precise, in control, and on top of things. After intermission, the Symphony played Sibelius's Symphony No. 5.

The following Friday, Isabelle Faust was the guest soloist in the Berg Violin Concerto. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducted. Also on the program were Chorale, by Magnus Lindberg, and, after intermission, Stravinsky's The Firebird. This was a concert I got tickets to by trading in an unused ticket for an earlier performance, so the seat was not especially good. When there's a soloist, I like to be right up front and just left of stage right, so I'm right in front of the soloist (D104 is my usual seat), but this time I was well off to stage left, which was a little disappointing. I did, however, enjoy Salonen's reading of The Firebird. He got a very warm welcome when he first appeared on stage and, as at other recent concerts I've attended with Salonen conducting, calls from the crowd for him to stay in San Francisco. 

On the 30th, it was an all-Beethoven program. Beethoven's Symphony No. 4 came before intermission, his Violin Concerto was performed after intermission with Hilary Hahn as soloist. Elsa-Pekka Salonen conducted. The highlight was the concerto. Hahn was in top form. Precise, with each note articulated, and with nearly perfect intonation, but never cold or distant-seeming. A very full house gave her a long standing ovation. She came back for an encore (something from the Bach solo partitas and sonatas) and then came back for a second encore, doing a piece I didn't recognize. It's always fun to watch her during rests because she often turns her back to the audience to watch the orchestra herself and really seems to enjoy listening from what is perhaps the best 'seat' in the house. I've noticed also that she always applauds for those who accompany her. A memorable performance. 

 

Music I'm Listening to: Hilary Hahn in recital, San Francisco

I attended what was nominally a San Francisco Symphony concert at Davies Symphony Hall last night, March 12 (which happened to be my birthday). The SFS is actually on tour in Europe at the moment. The concert last night was Hilary Hahn in recital – Hahn alone on the stage usually filled with musicians, dressed in a beautiful dark grey and Prussian blue dress adorned with sparkly silver sequins. 

She played one of the Bach sonatas for solo violin and two of the partitas – and played them very beautifully indeed (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). They say muscle memory takes over, but I'm always astounded by the feats of memory playing pieces like this without a score involves. It was mesmerizing. The audience was very appreciative and coaxed her into an encore which she introduced by saying "I think I've got one more in me...." It was a movement from one of the other Bach solo violin pieces.

Berenice Bing, A Lady and a Roadmap, Oil on Canvas, 1962

Earlier in the day I had been to the Asian Art Museum to see a show of newly acquired works by Chinese-American artist Berenice Bing, an artist I became aware of only recently (some of her work was included in the show of paintings by female abstract expressionist painters at Modern Art West last September, in Sonoma). I hadn't realized that she worked with people like Diebenkorn and Lobdell, among others. 

Berenice Bing, Lotus Goddess, 
watercolor and mixed media on paper, 1986-1988

There was also an interesting show of prints by Yoshida Hodaka. I've long been familiar with Hodaka, but it seems his entire family – his mother, his wife, and others – were artists. The show included prints by all of them. 

As it was my birthday, I indulged in oysters and sparkling wine at dinner afterwards. A much better day than my birthday last year which was spent dealing with the death of one of our cats at the hand (paw?) of some kind of predator in the middle of the night. 

Yosshida Hodaka, Red Wall B, photo etching
and woodblock print, 1995

Books I'm reading: Violin Virtuosos

I picked up this slim (120-page) volume at a recent San Francisco Symphony performance, in the Symphony store. Violin Virtuosos (Back Stage Books, 2000) is a collection of short essays about 11 top violinists: Joshua Bell, Leila Josefowicz, Joseph Silverstein, Jorja Fleezanis, Victoria Mullova, Mark Kaplan, Chee-Yun, Christian Tetzlaff, Hilary Hahn, Vadim Repin, and Kung-wha Chung. Quite a range. Some of these are mostly solo performers, a couple are concertmasters. Some are younger, some are older. Some are men, some are women. I have heard a number of them perform live: Bell, Josefowicz, Chee-Yun, Tetzlaff, Hahn, and Chung. I've met several of them at after-concert signings (Bell, Josfowicz, Chee-Yun, Hahn, and Chung). I've even had dinner with one of them—Kyung Wha Chung, in Tokyo, years ago. Others I had never even heard of (Fleezanis and Kaplan). So, it was a rounded introduction to a cast of some of the best living violinists.

As this was published in 2000, much has changed since the essays were written. Hilary Hahn, for example, was only 21 at the time and had just released only her third CD (today her discography includes more than 20 discs). Josefowicz was relatively new to the scene. Bell, on the cover, looks like a little boy. These are interesting snapshots and interesting for the variety of experience of the various artists discussed. I especially enjoyed the little blurbs for each violinist that tells not only what kind of instrument they play but even what brand of strings they use. Violin Virtuosos is brief, but worth the small amount of time it takes to read.

Music I'm Listening To: Sharon Isbin and Hilary Hahn

Last week was a busy week on many fronts. Musically speaking, I attended one of the November Santa Rosa Symphony concerts featuring guitarist Sharon Isbin. The following day, I had the privilege of hearing Hilary Hahn in recital at Davies Symphony Hall, in San Francisco. Isbin played the Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra, by Heitor Villa-Lobos. Also on the program were Dances of Galánta, by Kodály, Liszt's Mephisto Waltz No. 1, and Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from Westside Story.

The Santa Rosa Symphony Youth Orchestra joined the main symphony musicians at the end of the concert to play Bernstein's Overture to Candide in an unexpected encore--a piece that was on their tour program in Europe earlier in the season. Isbin, too, played an encore--one of those extremely familiar Spanish guitar pieces that I can't immediately put a name to.

I did backstage photography for the Santa Rosa Symphony again. Isbin tuned before going on stage using an electronic tuner. Just before it was time to go on stage, she turned to conductor Francesco Lecce-Chong and said "I'll take an A from the oboe so I can pretend to tune," which struck me as rather funny.

I have almost no words for the Hilary Hahn performance. She was superb, as always. She played one of the Bach solo sonatas for violin and two of the solo partitas, including Partita No. 2, with the famous extended chaconne. As an encore, she played a movement from another of the sonatas. It was strange to see the Davies Symphony Hall stage entirely empty of chairs, music stands, and instruments except for the lone figure of Hahn who nevertheless commanded the attention of perhaps the biggest crowd I've ever seen there. I counted six empty seats. During the encore, having already left my seat, I was able to watch and listen looking back from one of the doorways into the hall and to see the rapt audience all focused on Hahn, her violin, and the music she was making with it.

Music I'm Listening To: A Week of Music

I heard Midori in recital at the Green Music Center on April 23 and Hilary Hahn in recital at Davies Symphony Hall on the 26th. On the 29th, I'll be in San Francisco again to hear a concert conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado featuring Shostakovich's Symphony No. 9.

It's sad a name as big as Midori can't fill the Green Music Center. Filling the hall seems to have been a persistent problem since its opening, about four years ago. The first two seasons, I was delighted to subscribe to reasonably priced San Francisco Symphony concerts at the Center, but that program was abandoned—because the hall was usually no more than two-thirds full. Is Rohnert Park too far to drive if you live in San Francisco? I suppose people who live in San Francisco don't feel the need, no matter how good the sound, and it appears the native (Sonoma County) audience for classical music isn't big enough to support the venue unaided. I've heard it suggested that the Center hasn't been well enough advertised in San Francisco. Perhaps attendance will pick up if Bruno Ferrandis is replaced by a better, more charismatic conductor at the Santa Rosa Symphony (his contract runs out at the end of this season and will not be renewed).

At the Midori recital on the 23rd, I sat in the seats behind the stage for the first time. They are closer to the performer than I realized, but it's easy to forget how directional the sound projection of a violin is. I remember noticing sharp changes in dynamics at concerts by Kyung-wha Chung (who virtually dances while playing, frequently turning from side to side). Midori, mostly facing away from my vantage point, was sometimes hard to hear, especially during the opening piece, a Bach sonata for violin and piano that lacked impact. However, I very much enjoyed her performance of Schubert's C Major Fantasy for Piano and Violin (although it always seems a little longer than it needs to be) and her performance of the Brahms Piano and Violin Sonata No. 1, in G Major). Two pieces by Tchaikovsky rounded out the program—The Valse Sentimentale and the Valse-Scherzo. Midori also played an encore, a song by Grieg, as she told us in the lobby after the performance. She was accompanied on stage by pianist Özgur Aydin.

I've heard Hilary Hahn twice before in San Francisco, playing the Tchaikovsky violin concerto, with James Gaffigan conducting, and playing one of the Prokofieff concertos, with Osmo Vänskä conducting. I'd never heard her in recital before. It was an excellent opportunity to listen closely to the sound of her violin (according to the Wikipedia article on Hahn "an 1864 copy of Paganini's Cannone made by Vuillaume"), which seems particularly sweet in the mid-register and rather nicely balanced throughout its range, unlike some violins that seem to favor either the low or the high end.

The program was varied, earlier music in the first half, more modern music after intermission. It began with Mozart's Sonata in G Major for Violin and Piano (Cory Smythe accompanying) followed by the Bach Sonata No. 3 in C major for Solo Violin. Hahn played the Bach absolutely purely, absolutely correctly—every note articulated and right where it was supposed to be—without sounding in the least cold or distant, somehow being  utterly confident and charismatically present yet almost transparent, the music seeming to flow through and out of her. Her performance was mesmerizing—probably the most convincing performance of one of the Bach solo violin pieces I've ever heard, its only possible rival in my experience being one by Itzhak Perlman I heard as a college student in the early 1980s in Columbus, Ohio. Hahn was deeply moving. The entire audience immediately rose to its feet after she finished and brought her back on stage to acknowledge the applause several times before letting her go and starting the mid-concert leg stretch. She wore a beautiful floor length skirt—black with embroidered metallic discs.

She was equally impressive in a selection from Anton Garcia Abril's Six Partitas for Solo Violin (which I'd like to hear more of), in the Copland Sonata for Violin and Piano that followed, and in Tina Davidson's Blue Curve of the Earth, which is one of the 27 pieces Hahn commissioned for her recording In 27 Pieces (Hahn played this as an encore at the May 25, 2012 concert with Osmo Vänskä that I attended, so I've heard her perform it twice now).

For an encore, Hahn played the world premiere, she said, of Catch, by Aaron Severini, one of the honorable mentions among the 400 or so pieces she received as entries in her encore competition. She spoke directly to the audience in introducing the piece. After the concert, signing autographs for the longest line of people I've ever seen at Davies Symphony Hall waiting for a signing, she kindly wrote the name of the piece in my program for me. She gives the impression of being an extremely gracious, down-to-Earth person. When I asked her to date the CD cover she signed for me, she didn't know what day it was. It must be hard to keep track sometimes when you travel as much as a touring performer does.

[Update: The concert on the 29th was wonderful. Heras-Casado was overflowing with energy and so was the music. The program included Dance Suite by Bartok, the world premiere of Auditorium, by Mason Bates, Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin, and Symphony No. 9, by Shostakovich. ]

Photo of Midori courtesy of the Green Music Center website. Photo of Hilary Hahn courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony website.

Music I'm Listening To: Hilary Hahn with Osmo Vänskä Conducting the San Francisco Symphony (May 25, 2012)

Last night Hilary Hahn joined guest conductor Osmo Vänskä and the San Francisco Symphony for what turned out to be a rather exhilarating evening of music. The concert opened with modern Finnish composer Kalevi Aho's one-movement Minea, a piece composed in 2008 on commission from the Minnesota Orchestra. Hahn was then soloist in Prokofieff's Violin Concerto No. 1. After intermission, the Symphony played the Shostakovich Symphony No. 6.

Minea, debuted by the Minnesota Orchestra in November 2009,  has not yet been released as a commercial recording. I heard it last night for the first time. The opening was memorable--a sustained tone held by many of the instruments on stage seemed to float over odd sounds produced on the brass instruments that suggested waves beating against a beach. The woodwinds were very much present, especially the flutes and bassoons, fluttering in long scale-like passages using many half steps evocative of Arabic or Arab-influenced Spanish music--something oriental anyway. Minea kept building through the addition of more instruments and a faster tempo. Eventually, the very large percussion section seemed to take the lead. By the time the piece was coming to a climax it had something of the relentless forward motion of Ravel's Boléro. Every section of the orchestra seemed to get a turn, which reminded me of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra. Difficult to describe, but a lot of fun.

Hahn was wonderful in the Prokofieff. Although she seemed to lose her concentration momentarily near the beginning of the second movement, it was a brief lapse (if it wasn't my imagination), and the rest of the performance was fairly riveting. I especially enjoyed the way she very clearly articulated the raspy, chopped notes that punctuate the concerto and the wonderful metallic quality she gave to the sections played close to the bridge. Just watching her rather fierce concentration was mesmerizing. It helped to be in seat C106, virtually right in front of her, and no more than about three yards away. The whole orchestra sounded rather good from that position--with an unusual clarity for Davies Symphony Hall. Some of the members of the orchestra seemed as entranced as the audience. Hahn, meanwhile, while tightly focused, found time to look over her shoulder from time to time to take in the view of the orchestra, clearly enjoying herself--which seems to be her habit. I noticed her doing the same thing last time I heard her play live, when she performed the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in San Francisco, with James Gaffigan conducting, in November 2008. Last night Hahn wore a beautiful tapered black silk taffeta gown with starkly contrasting splashes of flowers and leaves in gold embroidery and appliqué. The performance was very warmly received.

Hahn delighted the audience by playing two encores, one modern, one not. She first played The Blue Curve of the Earth, which she herself commissioned from composer Tina Davidson--a scintillating piece of restrained energy with much use of pizzicato playing that I rather enjoyed. Hahn seemed almost apologetic when she took up her violin a second time, eliciting a laugh, this time to play a portion of the Bach A minor Sonata No. 2 for solo violin. "They gave me permission to play another one," she announced, and she played it very sweetly indeed. Hahn signed autographs after the performance. I asked her to date mine. She said matter-of-factly, "You'll have to tell me what the date is," no doubt a symptom of much travel.

I don't think I've heard a better reading of the Shostakovich. The ensemble was focused and tight. Vänskä elicited a memorable performance. All in all, perhaps the best concert this season--although I'd be hard-pressed to choose between this one and the December 8, 2011 performance with guest conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and soloist Leila Josefowicz. Happily, there's no need to choose.

Photo of Hilary Hahn by Peter Miller. Photo of Osmo Vänskä by Ann Marsden. Both photos courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony web site.