Music I'm Listening to: Michael Tilson Thomas conducting Mahler's 5th Symphony

I attended the San Francisco Symphony concert last night (January 26) at Davies Symphony Hall. On the program was a single piece, Mahler's Symphony No. 5. Michael Tilson Thomas conducted. It was played straight through with no intermission. I hadn't known it before, but, according to the program, MTT made his debut with the SF Symphony in 1974, conducting another Mahler symphony – Symphony No. 9. So, MTT has been conducting Mahler in San Francisco for 50 years. 

The concert hall was packed – not an empty seat. I don't think I've ever seen the place completely full like that before. The entire audience rose to give MTT a standing ovation as he walked on stage. The concert ended the same way – with an extended standing ovation for the conductor, who was looking a little frail, but no frailer that when I last saw him, which was during his first performance after recovering from his brain surgery. Before that, the last time I saw him was in March 2018, in a concert that, coincidentally, included the Mahler 5. That was a brilliant performance. 

This performance was almost as good. There was a little highly uncharacteristic wobbling in the brass section in one or two places last night, but, aside from that, the SF Symphony was its usual highly competent self. MTT takes this piece slowly, letting the spaces speak in a way that is highly effective, never rushing. As I've noted before, I've not been especially fond of MTT as a conductor over the years – except when he does Mahler. 

MTT looked deeply touched by the long ovation after the performance, after a few minutes he raised his hands to stop the applause and he addressed the audience. He thanked the orchestra and the audience for the many years and many experiences shared by all of us. He seemed a bit wistful, giving the impression that he knows and has accepted the fact that most of his career and his life are behind him. The entire audience seemed to understand. There was much love in the air.

Music I'm listening to: Gautier Capuçon plays Danny Elfman's Cello Concerto, MTT conducting

I've been lazy the last year or so about noting the concerts I've been to (both the Santa Rosa and San Francisco Symphony concerts I regularly attend). I like to post comments here as it allows me later to remember exactly who I saw where and when. Several concerts have been "lost" because of my laziness, but a rather exciting San Francisco Symphony concert last night has spurred me to try to start at least making brief comments about concerts again going forward.

Michael Tilson Thomas returned to Davies Symphony Hall for the US premiere of Danny Elfman's Cello Concerto, written for Capuçon. Although it was a SFS commission (jointly with the Vienna Konzerthaus, Vienna Symphony, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France) and it was to have been premiered in San Francisco, apparently the performance here was delayed and the world premiere ended up being in Vienna with Capuçon on the cello. The Elfman Cello Concerto was sandwiched between Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments, a piece without strings, and Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings, Op. 48, a piece with strings only. MTT is looking pretty well. He's put on weight and he seems a trifle frail at times, but he had no trouble on the podium. The San Francisco audience loves him. He was very enthusiastically received, especially now that he's appearing much less often than he once did. 

I noticed the orchestra layout was reversed, with the violins split left and right, violas middle-right, cellos middle-left, and the basses on the left (all from the audience's perspective). I'm guessing that was for the Tchaikovsky, which involves a lot of intertwined first and second violin parts that are more effective if the sections are on opposite sides of the stage. 

The Elfman concerto was a lot of fun. I didn't know anything about Elfman until I Googled him this morning. I had heard his name and knew vaguely that he was a film composer, but I hadn't realized just how many well-known scores he's done, including for some very familiar films such as Edward Scissorhands, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory (the Johnny Depp version), Good Will Hunting, Mars Attacks!, and many more. He also appears to have been the front man for Oingo Boingo, a band I know nothing about, although I remember the name. 

Before hearing it, I was worried the music was going to sound like typical movie music, but, happily, the Cello Concerto, while in places it has the kind of sweeping melodic lines and details of orchestration (a lot of bells in the soft passages) that often say "movie music," Elfman has written more than cinematic filler (I say that recognizing that the very best movie music is always better than filler). The piece opens with a lot of moody glissandi in the strings that precede the entrance of the cello. The second movement is much more animated than the first, brisk with a lot of staccato scratching on the cello – the bow bouncing off the strings. Later there is a slower movement that has as its highlight an extended section with the cello playing in tandem with a solo violin (concertmaster Alexander Barantschik in this case). Overall, I thought it had a good balance of the lyrical on the one hand, rhythmic invention on the other. Very enjoyable. I wonder if Capuçon will record it? Elfman was in the audience. He joined Capuçon and MTT on stage after the performance to take bows.

The Tchaikovsky Serenade is a very familiar piece. By coincidence, one of the very first records I acquired in college, when just getting interested in classical music, was a recording of this piece with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting, so it was great fun to hear him do it live. It is lush, unabashedly romantic music full of infectious melody, and the SFS strings played it beautifully. It was a great evening capped off by a tasty meal at our favorite after-concert restaurant, Absinthe Brasserie and Bar, which, happily, is now serving late enough again (after a COVID hiatus) that you can get a reservation for after the concert. 

Last week was the second Santa Rosa Symphony concert of the season. Violinist Bella Hristova played Wynton Marsalis's Violin Concerto in D, which I enjoyed very much, and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 was also on the program. Both very solidly done. Hristova is one I will continue to watch. I hadn't heard of her before, but I was impressed.

Music I'm Listening To: Start of the 2019-2020 Season

After the performance, a tired MTT

I attended the September 13 performance of the San Francisco Symphony, my first concert of the 2019-2020 season. MTT conducted Mahler's Symphony No. 6. It was the only piece on the program, played straight through without intermission. It must have been exhausting for the performers.

As I've noted here before, I generally don't care for MTT as a conductor, as, in my experience, he often seems aloof and unengaged in the music. Mahler has been the exception. This is the second time I've heard him conduct a live performance of one of the Mahler Symphonies, having heard him at the helm for Symphony No. 5 in March last year. That was a breathtaking performance.

While I enjoyed this latest concert, it wasn't quite as exciting. Perhaps my expectations were too high. I thought the third movement a little uncertain in places and thought the tempo variations in the second were a bit too exaggerated. That said, the orchestra members played well (as they virtually always do), the first movement seemed perfect and the finale was fun to watch.

I've always wondered how they do the hammer blows toward the end of the piece. A large wooden structure with a small platform on top was built high behind the percussion session for this performance making it accessible from the front row of the balcony seats behind the stage (which were empty, which is unusual). A member of the percussion team appeared for each of the blows above the wooden platform wielding a large wooden sledgehammer. He looked rather menacing and a bit surreal. It must be hard to time the blow, given how heavy the hammer seemed, but he got it right. As in the case of the March performance. The orchestra was seated in the antiphonal arrangement.

The Santa Rosa Symphony season opens tomorrow, October 5. I'll be doing backstage photography for the symphony again this year. Garrick Ohlsson will be playing the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4 and Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra is also on the program.

Music I'm Listening To: Gil Shaham with the San Francisco Symphony

I attended the March 23 performance of the San Francisco Symphony at Davies Symphony Hall. MTT conducted. Gil Shaham performed Berg's Violin Concerto before intermission. Mahler's Symphony No. 5 followed the intermission. Although I have two recordings of the Berg concerto, a recent one by Gil Shaham (1930s Violin Concertos Volume 1, Canary Classics CC12), the other from 1984 (the first CD I ever bought) by Kyung-wha Chung, (London 411 804-2), I don't know the piece well enough to have a strong opinion about the interpretation, but I enjoyed watching the performers, particularly as the session was recorded for the purpose of a release on CD. The soloist was flanked by a pair of microphones and there were several in positions not usually present, although all San Francisco Symphony performances are recorded for the archives, I believe.

It was particularly interesting to watch Shaham with concertmaster Barantschik and associate concertmaster Nadya Tichman in some of the more lyrical passages where the two lead violins seem to double the soloist. I noticed also that the antiphonal seating arrangement was used for this concert, presumably because that's what Mahler would have imagined. In this arrangement, the first violins are where we are used to seeing them in the US but the second violins are on the other side of the conductor, where we normally would expect to see the cello section, with the violas toward the middle but closer to stage left (audience right), the cellos toward the middle but closer to stage right (audience left), and the basses more or less behind the first violins. Doing a little research, the familiar arrangement with the first and second violins stage right, the violas in the middle, the cello section stage left, and with the basses behind the cello section was apparently thought up by Leopold Stokowski and the change is referred to as "the Stokowski shift." Watching a live performance always highlights the sort of thing you might not notice listening to a recording.

I'm generally not a fan of MTT. In fact, when buying subscription seats, we usually go out of our way to avoid him, choosing the guest conductors instead. I suppose mine is a minority opinion, but when I've seen him conduct, he often seems aloof—bored even, simply going through the motions. I've never really been impressed. Watching him conduct the Mahler 5th was different. He seemed quite the opposite—intensely engaged throughout the performance, keeping the orchestra with him the entire way.

And a long way it is. The performance lasted 82 minutes. While that included longer breaks between movements than would be typical in a recording, I'd say it was just under 80 minutes of actual playing. I went back through my various recordings of this piece. The shortest of them is 62 minutes, a 1975 recording on LP from Maurice Abravanel and the Utah Symphony (Vanguard Everyman SRV 321/2), the longest 74 minutes, a 1969 recording by Barbirolli and the New Philharmonia Orchestra re-released on CD in the early 1990s (EMI Classics CDM 7 64749 2). Coincidentally, the three others I have are all 69 minutes--Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic recorded live in 2002 (EMI Classics 5 57385 2), another live recording, this time with Solti and the Chicago Symphony (Decca 433 329-2), and a recording by Sinopoli and the Philharmonia Orchestra (Deutsche Gramophon 415 476-2). All of which is to say that MTT's reading was a very slow one, yet it felt perfect. In fact, much of its strength seemed to come from his willingness to resist the temptation to rush in places where the temptation must be great. This was the first time I'd heard MTT doing Mahler (for which, he is known, of course). It was a very persuasive performance indeed. The performers were superb throughout. In places the clarity and precision of the playing was breathtaking. Perhaps MTT is just lackluster when he's bored?

Photo of Gil Shaham by Luke Ratray. Photo of MTT conducting by Kristen Loken. Photos courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony

Music I'm Listening To: San Francisco Symphony with Leif Ove Andsnes (September 12, 2014)

I attended the Friday, September 12 performance of the San Francisco Symphony. The program included Rossini's overture to La Gazza Ladra, Alternative Energy by Mason Bates, and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1. Leif Ove Andsnes was soloist in the Beethoven concerto. Michael Tilson Thomas conducted. The orchestra gave a lively performance of Rossini's very familiar overture (although I would not have been able to name it before I had read the program), getting the evening off to buoyant start before shifting gears to a very modern piece, the Bates, which was composed in 2012.

The program notes say the San Francisco Symphony has done of series of concerts during the past two seasons pairing the music of Mason Bates with pieces by Beethoven, and this was another in that series, but nowhere does it explain why these two composers have been paired. I imagine there is a notional link, but it isn't obvious to me and the program had nothing to say about the juxtaposition, which was a little annoying (the failure to explain was annoying, that is). Personally, I'd rather hear a program of all modern music or all music of whatever period, unless there's some compelling reason to pair two pieces that are very different in style.

Composer Mason Bates wrote an extensive comment on Alternative Energy for the program notes. The piece begins, we are told, on a rural farm in 1896 and takes us to 2222, in Rykjavik, by way of Chicago (in 2012) and Xinjiang Province (in 2112). The piece is described as "an energy symphony" that moves from the cranking of an automobile engine, to sounds of contemporary Chicago, to scenes of a futuristic Chinese energy industry (including a meltdown), and finally to a post-apocalyptic Icelandic rainforest, before ending with "the occasional song of future birds" and "distant tribal voices" that call for fire "our first energy source." A motif played first on the violin (by Associate Concertmaster Nadya Tichman) recurs throughout the piece, often as a violin line, but in other guises as well. The composition includes recorded sounds played back through a surround-sound sound system that were nicely integrated--which is often not the case when electronic and live instrument sounds are used together. Some sections had a clearly Chinese feel (with the violins sounding like an erhu), other sections suggested gamelan music, sometimes the mood was jazzy. There was a cinematic sweep throughout. I thought the piece consistently interesting. I very much enjoyed the performance but didn't feel the need to know the "story" behind it. The audience was very appreciative. The composer appeared on stage to take bows along with conductor Thomas and the orchestra. He seemed very pleased with the performance, which was recorded for possible future release.

After intermission, Leif Ove Andsnes gave a controlled but lively rendition of the Beethoven piano concerto that was very well received by an appreciative audience. The applause lasted long enough to bring Andsnes out again to play two Beethoven bagatelles as an encore. Andsnes looked very sharp in a nicely tailored suit. The quality of the fabric it was cut from was apparent even from the audience (although I was seated in the second row and right in front of the piano). The concert was a very nice start to the 2014–2015 season.

(Photograph of Mason Bates by Ryan Shude, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony website.)

Music I'm Listening to: The San Francisco Symphony at the Green Music Center (September 12, 2013)

Last night was the first concert in the 2013-2014 subscription concert series that features the San Francisco Symphony at the Green Music Center in Rohnert Park. Michael Tilson Thomas conducted Zosha di Castri's Lineage, Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, and Prokofiev's Symphony No. 3. Pianist Yefim Bronfman was soloist in the Tchaikovsky.

The highlight of the concert was the Di Castri piece, which is brand new (having been premiered only a few months ago). Describing highly abstract modern music is an impossible task, but it was an engaging expanse of shifting colors and textures that I enjoyed very much. It seemed a bit nostalgic and melancholy on the whole, but somehow forward-looking in mood at the same time. The long droning notes in some places put me in mind of ancient Japanese court music (gagaku) or Noh music. I would have asked the composer (who was in attendance) about whether she was familiar with gagaku, but she was pinned down throughout intermission by well-wishers and others asking questions, so I didn't bother her.

This year, we're sitting in new seats, having chosen to look down on the performers from the upper balcony. It's quite a different experience. I enjoyed being able to watch the conductor and the mechanics of the performance--the turning of pages on the music stands, the taking up and putting down of mutes, the quiet cleaning of instruments, the sometimes frantic activity in the percussion section. Lineage keeps no fewer than seven percussionists busy. According to the program notes, they were handling timpani, marimba, vibraphone, xylophone, glockenspiel, snare drum, bass drum, ocean drum, suspended cymbals, crash cymbal, china cymbal, nipple gongs, tubular bells, almglocken, tam-tams, woodblocks, and rainstick--not to mention a piano and a celesta. Viewing from above is a compromise. The sound is a little muddy. During the Tchaikovsky, there were times when the piano was inaudible over the orchestra. During the Prokofiev, sometimes the harps were inaudible. That said, the sound isn't bad up top and it's a lot of fun to be able to see everything that goes on during a performance. Watching from the balcony makes a concert a much more visual experience.

One unexpected visual was a half-empty concert hall. No one seemed to know why so many seats were unsold (I asked several ushers). We subscribed to the San Francisco concerts at the Green Music Center last year, and I remember a full house on every occasion. Another change from last year--a very positive change--is the parking situation. They are no longer creating long traffic jams in Rohnert Park by charging for parking. Parking has been folded into the ticket prices--as it should have been from the outset. Bravo!

Music I'm Listening To: The San Francisco Symphony at the Green Music Center (March 7, 2013)

I attended the March 7, 2013 performance of the San Francisco Symphony at the Green Music Center. Michael Tilson Thomas conducted Drift and Providence, by Samuel Carl Adams, the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4 (Yuja Wang, soloist), and the Brahms Symphony No. 1.  Conductor Thomas led a precise and satisfying interpretation of the Brahms symphony with an especially lush second movement. The woodwinds in particular were memorable, especially the oboe in the first movement, the clarinet in the second, and the flute in later movements. The oboe sounded especially poignant following the sudden unexpected death of the Symphony's principal oboist, William Bennet, February 28, following his collapse from a brain hemorrhage on February 23 during a performance. The basses, trombones, and percussion were remarkably resonant. This new hall seems to emphasize the low end of things. I wonder if conductors have to learn a new hall and adjust their performances to it? I imagine they do. The tympani at the end of the piece were played with special verve, I thought.

Yuja Wang's performance of the Beethoven Concerto was met with a standing ovation. With the exception of a momentary stumble in the first movement (my imagination?) it was impeccable, marked by crisp articulation and fleet fingering. She wore a citron yellow gown off one shoulder with a draped bodice and a long, full skirt with a daring slit--very pretty and rather more conventional than the "bathing suit" she chose the last time I saw her perform.

To me, however, the highlight of the evening was the opening piece, Drift and Providence. I didn't realize until today (reading the program notes) that Samuel Adams is the son of composer John Adams. It runs in the family, apparently, as does art generally: His mother is photographer Deborah O'Grady. I also see from the liner notes that the piece is in five movements, each of which is labeled with references to the West, and San Francisco in particular. Listening to the piece for the first time without knowing that, I'd have been hard-pressed to say where one movement began and another ended. The music clearly had sections, but the overall effect was of a broad, multifaceted, shifting layer of sound with no clearly defined breaks. Talking with the composer after the concert, he called it "kaleidoscopic." It gave me the impression of a progression from a mellow, sleepy state to a new state of consciousness more agitated and aware than the first, followed by a kind of compressed recapitulation of that progression and then a raucous summing up. The early parts of the piece suggested metal wind chimes, a gamelan orchestra, wind, and waves--but all as if heard with the ears of someone heavily drugged--this followed by a shift (the "drift" of the title, no doubt) in the direction of something brighter. The dreamy, shimmering quality of much of Drift and Providence is enhanced by the use of a computerized feed of processed sound, manipulated by the composer during the performance. It's a piece I'd like to hear again.

We attended a gathering for the artists after the concert. Yuja Wang decided not to appear. Michael Tilson Thomas looked bored and distracted and eager to leave--not that I blame him. Samuel Adams was a delight to talk with. It turns out he lives in Brooklyn, where I spent my earliest years. He even knew the street I lived on, St. John's Place--our stickball field.

Photos courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony. Photo of Deutsche Grammophon artist Yuja Wang © Felix Broede. Photo of composer Samuel Carl Adams by Deborah O'Grady.

Music I'm Listening to: The San Francisco Symphony's Inaugural Concert at the Green Music Center (December 6, 2012)

Last night I attended the first performance of the San Francisco Symphony in the new Green Music Center. I had seen the main concert hall at the Center twice before--once before the seats were installed and a second time when Santa Rosa Symphony subscribers were given an opportunity to see the finished hall, a few months back. This was my first experience of a performance there. The new complex is in Rohnert Park, only about 20 minutes south of where I live. I'm used to seeing the San Francisco performers at their home base, Davies Symphony Hall, in San Francisco, a much longer drive. Naturally, I was most curious about how the main hall sounds--and I was looking forward to better sound than at Davies, which seems to have some unfortunate dead spots, but I was also curious to see how people moved in the new space, to test the seats for comfort, to check out the sight lines, to get a feel for how the audiences and performers felt there.

On the program were Richard Strauss's tone poem Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, the world premiere of Mark Volkert's Pandora, and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5, Yefim Bronfman soloist.  Michael Tilson Thomas led the orchestra. Mark Volkert is the San Francisco Symphony's Assistant Concertmaster--and a composer, which was news to me.

Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas appeared very pleased to be at the new venue. Following the opening piece, the Strauss tone poem, he addressed the audience briefly. He spoke mostly about the Mark Volkert composition, but also suggested that the San Francisco Symphony was excited to be performing at the Green Music Center. He referred to it as an historic night at "your new concert hall" and then corrected himself, calling it "our new concert hall."

I found the seats comfortable enough, although the arm rests are rather narrow and I wouldn't call the seating inviting, beautiful as it is to look at. The seats aren't ones you sink into a little for a feeling of pampered support. They are merely solid. I sat dead center in Row O, which has no seats immediately in front of it, so it was hard for me to get an idea of leg room or of the sight lines from the center portion of the main hall (I was wondering how easy it is to see over people's heads, as the pitch of the floor seems quite gradual), but a perfect location for attempting to judge the sound quality. During intermission, the central gathering area outside the performance hall proper felt decidedly cramped. Patrons lined up to get a glass of wine or coffee and a cookie filled the entire center of the room in two rows, making it difficult to walk across the space--or anywhere at all. There was no room to stroll about or watch people come and go (intermission's greatest pleasure), although on warm evenings it will be possible to enjoy the presumably less crowded entrance area outside the building, which is lined with rather impressive old olive trees.

I wish I were an acoustician. I can't make a professional judgment of the sound quality, but I noticed a few things of interest. In a word or two, the hall sounds immediate and clean with very little reverberation (to my ears, anyway). The result is that the sound has real presence but feels a trifle cold. The reflections are mostly lateral (with very little seeming to come from the very high ceiling) and very quick, which gives the sound great clarity and quite an amazing sense of dimensional precision--if that's the right phrase. What I mean is that you can very clearly hear where the sound of each instrument is coming from. Its position to the left or right side of the stage is quite apparent. For the most part, these seem to be good things.

However, the spatial clarity created a slightly disconcerting effect I've never experienced in a concert hall before. There was a disjunct between the actual and apparent sources of the sound of Bronfman's piano, for example. The actual origin of sound radiating from a piano, I suspect, lies in a small, somewhat diffuse range defined by the midpoints of the strings being struck by the piano's hammers at a given moment. I may be wrong. I'm not a physicist. It may be a range defined by the points of contact between the hammers and the piano strings. At any rate, it's inside the "box" of the piano, not at the pianist's fingers on the keyboard, which is where I think we expect it to be--however wrongly. In other words,  the actual sound source is about two and a half feet behind the keyboard, or, from the perspective of a listener with the piano placed at right angles to the seats in a concert hall, about two and a half feet to the right. Sitting in the fifteenth row (plus the aisle in front of me), I was perhaps 50 feet from the piano. The time difference between sound arriving at my ears from the apparent point of its origin (the keyboard) and its actual point of origin (to the right, somewhere inside the box) must be very small indeed. Ordinarily in such situations the brain easily tricks us into hearing the sound coming from where we expect it, which is at the point of the activity we see (fingers at the keyboard). The result of the very precise sound of the new hall was that Bronfman's playing was unambiguously radiating from inside the piano box, to the right, while his fingers seemed to be doing something entirely unrelated off to the left. That is, the acoustics are so precise that the brain has trouble connecting the dots. The effect was particularly remarkable when the pianist's left hand (further away and often not visible on the lower keys) was running up the keyboard in quick scales while the more visible right hand was playing a different line on the higher keys. The scales seemed like the singing voices of creatures alive inside the black piano case, quite independent of what Bronfman was doing at the keyboard. I regret I was unable to attend the pre-concert tour yesterday led by one of the men that designed the hall.

I imagine my position exactly at the center of the space had something to do with the effect. By pointing it out, I don't mean to criticize, necessarily. I mean it rather as a comment on the qualities of the new concert hall, which, generally speaking, I liked. It's certainly a huge improvement over the sound at the old Luther Burbank Center for the Performing Arts. It will require more visits to our new concert hall to get a real sense of the place, but, so far, I'm encouraged to think the experience there will be good. I deeply resent, however, being asked to pay $10 to park in one of the ample, immediately adjacent Sonoma State University parking lots that normally cost $2 to park in. Parking was free at The Luther Burbank Center. I believe it bad policy to do anything that supports the notion that the arts are for rich people only. Charging for parking helps make live music less accessible to people of ordinary means. It's bad enough having the name of Sanford Weill on the new hall.  

As for the performance, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas led the orchestra in what seemed a clean, correct reading of Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks (the French horns stood out for their warmth and their fine unison playing), and Bronfman handled the Beethoven concerto with seemingly effortless aplomb. I wouldn't call Mr. Bronfman portly, but he's not a small man. Words like "nimble" are not the first that come to mind as he walks on stage, yet his playing is wonderfully quick and agile. I very much enjoyed his interpretation of the concerto.

The highlight of the evening, however, was Volkert's Pandora. Pandora is written for strings only and Volkert takes full advantage of the aural possibilities stringed instruments offer, using a range of extended techniques. The piece reminded me of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra--not because of any melodic resemblance, but because of the way soloists and small ensembles within the larger group are momentarily given a leading role before the flow of the piece is handed back or passed to another group or soloist. Although this is "program music" based on the story of Pandora unleashing myriad woes upon the human race, it can be enjoyed without any thought about the narrative content--like any good program music. All in all, an enjoyable evening.

Photo of Yefim Bronfman by Dario Acosta, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony.

Music I'm Listening To: Yo-Yo Ma with MTT Conducting the San Francisco Symphony (September 15, 2011)

Thursday night [September 15] I attended a performance of the San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas conducting. Yo-Yo Ma was guest soloist in Hindemith's Cello Concerto of 1940. The concert opened with Beethoven's Lenore Overture No. 3 and closed, after intermission, with a performance of the Symphony No. 1, by Brahms.

The last time I heard Yo-Yo Ma was in Tokyo, about 15 years ago, at a sold-out concert for which I was unable to get good tickets. Many of the seats had been bought up by corporations and given away to clients--people that didn't really have much interest in being there except to see a musical celebrity (that's my theory anyway). Whatever the reason, the concert was marred by a very noisy, inattentive audience and by my distance from the stage. Thursday was a rather different experience: I got the impression the crowd was there for the music and not the star status of the soloist (although a few people left at intermission). Perhaps it helped that the concert was being taped--before the performance began a man came out on stage and asked everyone to be as quiet as possible so as not to mar the recording. Also, last night I was sitting close to the performers.

I'm used to sitting at the back of the first floor at Davies Symphony Hall, but having noticed a dead spot just under the overhang of the balcony, I had the seats changed this season to the fourth row. I like being able to see the instruments at close range--stringed instruments come in a fascinating variety of colors, ranging from deep chestnut brown through various reddish tones and into almost blonde shades. I like being able to watch fingers flying up and down the fingerboards of the cellos and I like feeling the low-frequency vibrations of the string basses. Close seats allow a good view of the soloist (although on Thursday night the conductor blocked my view as often as not). On the down side, the sound can lack integration. Sitting at the right side of the hall (facing the stage), I got rather too much of the basses and the cellos while the violins and other sections of the orchestra seemed slightly distant. As the closer seats are also lower seats, you don't get a full view of the players when sitting close; I missed being able to see all of the orchestra in action, and it was difficult to see which musicians the conductor was acknowledging after each piece. So, the up-front location has both advantages and disadvantages.

Watching Mr. Ma play reminded me of seeing Rostropovich play in Tokyo in the late 1990s and, for what are probably less obvious reasons, of watching violinist Hilary Hahn in San Francisco a couple of years ago. Rostropovich was well into his seventies when I saw him, but he had a focus, intensity, and sheer energy that would have been remarkable in a man half his age. Mr. Ma has the same sort of presence, the same sort of focus and intensity while playing.Both men (and Hahn) simultaneously exude a relaxed self-assuredness and an inner joyfulness that seems perpetually in danger of brimming over. After the Hindemith Mr. Ma spent as much time applauding for the orchestra with a grin of pleasure as he did acknowledging the applause meant for him. He assumes a rather more slouched posture than many cellists when playing, which adds to his general air of easy-going confidence. During passages in the Hindemith concerto when the cello rests, Mr. Ma frequently turned half around to look at the orchestra with a broad smile on his face. Ms. Hahn did something similar during the performance of the Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto I attended. In both cases, you could almost hear an inner voice saying "What fun this is--how lucky I am to be here!" The best performers at their best always seem to be having a great deal of fun, no matter how serious the music. I've seen it in performances by the New Century Chamber Orchestra, by Kyung-Wha Chung, by Elly Ameling, by conductors such as James Gaffigan and Gustavo Dudamel. It's infectious.

The performance of the Beethoven overture seemed correct but lacking in sparkle. I enjoyed hearing the Brahms Symphony No. 1 live for the first time--in places, the unison of the string sections was thrilling, concertmaster Alexander Barantschik played the solo violin sections near the end of the piece especially sweetly--but MTTs reading seemed uneven in the final movement, where the tempo was allowed to wander in a way that broke the tension written into the music--or so it seemed to me. I wonder why such familiar standards as the Beethoven and Brahms pieces were chosen to bracket the very mid-20th century Hindemith concerto (which turned out to be the highlight of the evening)? Despite a little confusion when Mr. Ma's music misbehaved (at one point MTT was crouched down, conducting with one hand, while reaching back with his other hand, trying to hold the pages open for the soloist), the orchestra was tight, focused, and electrifyingly precise. It's unusual to be able to single out a tympanist, but the man behind the copper pots was amazing on Thursday night--shooting out bullets of sound that punctuated some of the more exuberant passages with a superb combination of power and precision. The woodwinds were in top form as well (especially the oboe and flute), but that's normal in San Francisco. I'm familiar with some of the less well known modern cello concertos--those by Dutilleux and Lutoslawski, in particular--but the Hindemith was unfamiliar to me. I enjoyed it enough to think I'd like to hear it again. I wonder who has recorded it?

Photo of Yo-Yo Ma by Michael O'Neill, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony

Music I'm Listening To: Michael Tilson Thomas Conducting the San Francisco Symphony, Yuja Wang Soloist (June 17, 2011)

I attended the June 17 evening performance of the San Francisco Symphony, a concert conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas and featuring pianist Yuja Wang. The program included Bartok's Rumanian Folk Dances, the Bartok Piano Concerto No. 2, and a suite of pieces from Tchaikovsky's music for Swan Lake. I was able to attend the pre-concert talk, having earlier in the day gone to the Museum of the African Diaspora to see the Romare Bearden show currently there. It was useful to hear some of the Rumanian Dances in versions for solo piano during the talk. While charming in the orchestrated versions the symphony played, they have a simplicity and clarity on the piano that is lost when played by an ensemble.

You could almost hear a collective gasp when, following the Rumanian Dances, Yuja Wang walked out on stage wearing a very short, clinging, vermillion dress with black venting and a bold V-shaped black design on the back--a dress so short and tight that there would have been a scandal if people were scandalized by such things any more. My mother, who also attended the performance, got it right, I think, when she said the dress looked more like a bathing suit. Four-inch platform heels added to the effect. One wonders if platforms are the best choice for using the pedals on a piano, but I assume Ms. Wang knows what works and what doesn't. The outfit was a distraction, however, if not an entirely unpleasant one.

The Bartok Piano Concerto No. 2 requires a great deal of energy, particularly in its opening and concluding movements, an energy Wang appears to have in abundance. While her playing was fast, powerful, and precise, and I enjoyed the performance on the whole, it didn't quite gel in places, with Thomas allowing the orchestra to completely overwhelm the piano here, and letting the opposite happen there, particularly in the first movement. The slow, brooding second movement was most effective. Thomas always seems wildly inconsistent to me (see below).

The ballet music that followed intermission, however, was nearly perfect. I can't really imagine a more persuasive performance. Thomas, as usual, seemed aloof while on the podium, but there was a tightness between the musicians and the conductor in this case that resulted in a clean, neat performance that let the music speak without any obstruction. As usual in San Francisco, the woodwind section stood out, particularly the flute in this case. There were a number of well-played solos by one of the trumpets as well. Evidently the audience agreed with me. As Thomas was acknowledging individual musicians after the performance, the flute and trumpet got particularly enthusiastic applause. The concert was worth it just for the Tchaikovsky.

Photo of Yuja Wang by Felix Broede, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony

Music I'm Listening to: Gil Shaham, The San Francisco Symphony

Heard a moderately disappointing concert in San Francisco last night, Michael Tilson Thomas conducting. On the program were Henry Cowell's Synchrony, Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5 (Gil Shaham soloist), and Harmonielehre, by John Adams--choices that seemed a rather odd juxtaposition of the modern and the classical. I didn't particularly care for the Cowell, although I'm not sure it got the most sympathetic of readings from MTT. I'm afraid I would have to say the same about the Mozart. Shaham played well, but MTT's direction seemed flat and lifeless, particularly in the middle movement, which had a rather droning effect. The dramatic swelling effects of the third movement seemed stifled, the dynamics all wrong. Was it just me? Also, the sound seemed distant and muffled. I've had that sensation once before at Davies Symphony Hall, when hearing Itzhak Perlman in October 2009. Last night I was in seat Y107. At the Perlman concert I was in AA107--same seat two rows back. I wonder if there's a dead spot there? Still, that doesn't explain MTT's apparent apathy during the Mozart.

The night was saved by hearing what I thought was an excellent performance of Harmonielehre, by modern composer John Adams. To my surprise, Adams (pictured) appeared onstage afterward. He seemed very pleased with the performance, and the audience was very appreciative as well. Harmonielehre, nominally a minimalist composition, doesn't suffer from the monotony the word "minimalist" often conjures up. I felt like I was riding a scintillating wave throughout, but particularly in the rousing first and third movements of this long (40-minute), three-movement composition from 1985. It was almost hypnotizing in places, but never boring. I'm sure it is a taxing piece for the musicians to play (the cellos, for example, have to bow identical patterns over and over again, and the percussion has to maintain the same difficult rhythms for long stretches, although I noticed that the cello section had been divided where possible, so that one group would take over while others rested briefly). The San Francisco Symphony rose to the challenge, and the conductor seemed engaged in this case. Very enjoyable.

Photo of John Adams by Deborah O'Grady, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony

Music I'm Listening to: San Francisco Symphony

I attended a San Francisco Symphony concert last night. Michael Tilson Thomas conducted. I heard the Schubert Mass in G and the Berg Violin Concerto (I've always wondered why so many composers wrote just one violin concerto--I guess it feels obligatory even to composers that aren't really interested in the idea). Generally, I enjoyed the concert, but the Berg concerto is not one of my favorites. I mostly wanted to hear Gil Shaham play. He was very good--as you would expect--but in several sections I got the feeling that the conductor had lost perspective. The violin was almost completely hidden behind the orchestra in passages that seemed to me to require the soloist to be up front--but what do I know?

The Schubert mass was beautifully done, however. The chorus and the soloists were very good, I thought. MTT is a fairly acrobatic conductor, I see. I hadn't seen him live before. So far, all the concerts I've been to in SF have been with guest conductors or with James Gaffigan--whom I like very much. Frankly, I like him better than MTT.

Photos courtesy of The San Francisco Symphony