Last night Davies Symphony Hall saw the debut of French conductor Fabien Gabel on the podium of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). His program was framed by the music of two familiar French composers, Paul Dukas for the “overture” and Camille Saint-Saëns for the symphony. The concerto soloist was also French, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. The concerto, on the other hand, was unabashedly American, composed on a commission shared by the Beijing Music Festival, Radio France, and SFS, receiving its first United States performance last night. Composer Aaron Zigman gave his concerto the title “Tango Manos” (tango hands).
The most pleasant surprise of the evening was that Dukas was not represented by “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” which many will be forgiven for thinking it was the only piece he ever wrote. Instead Gabel chose to present Dukas’ score for the one-act ballet “La Péri,” originally commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes in 1911. Gabel conducted the 1912 version, which began with a two-minute fanfare (which some probably think is the second piece Dukas ever wrote).
Natalia Vladimirovna Trouhanowa, who danced the first performance of “La Péri” (1921 photograph by R. Sobol, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
The ballet’s scenario suggests that Diaghilev was responding to the great success of “The Firebird” (first performed in 1910) by providing his audiences with more of the same. Thus Michel Fokine’s Prince Ivan becomes Prince Iskender, and the Firebird becomes the mythical peri (a fairy in Persian mythology). The title character was to be danced by Natalia Vladimirovna Trouhanowa. However, she had a falling-out with Diaghilev over the terms of her contract, and he cancelled the premiere performance. Trouhanowa commissioned new choreography from Ivan Clustine and premiered the work at the Théâtre de Châtelet in Paris on April 22, 1912 with the fanfare Dukas had added.
If the choreography shows unmistakable signs of “The Firebird,” it is not hard to identify moments in Dukas’ score that reflect on Igor Stravinsky’s music. For that matter the influence of Claude Debussy on Stravinsky can also be found in Dukas’ music, along with possible signs of Maurice Ravel. Nevertheless, there is no mistaking Dukas for any of these three contemporary composers. His instrumentation is decidedly distinctive; and, even in the absence of a blow-by-blow account of the ballet’s narrative, one can easily appreciate how the overall score parses into the individual episodes of the narrative. Mind you, there are any number of moments of unabashed spectacle, many due to having twice the usual number of performers in the percussion section.
Given that last night was a “first contact” experience of this score for me (except for the fanfare), I felt that Gabel gave a well-informed performance. He knew exactly how to balance his instrumental resources as the music advanced from one episode to the next. My only misgiving came with the opening blow-the-roof-off dynamics for the fanfare. Fortunately, Gabel responded quickly to this burst of excess, allowing the rest of the fanfare to progress with more control over the three trumpets, four horns, two tenor trombones, one bass trombone, and tuba to maintain the attention of the serious listener. As a result, the concluding climax provided just the right gesture of grand finality.
Sadly, Gabel’s sense of pace and balance were not as secure for the Saint-Saëns selection, his Opus 78 (“Organ”) symphony in C minor. Here again the conductor faced the challenge of managing a very large ensemble, this time with the Ruffatti Concert Organ thrown into the mix. To be fair, Saint-Saëns’ approach to symphonic form was never his strong suit; but Gabel never seemed to capture the sense of this symphony having its own well-defined journey from beginning to end. In many respects the music is at its best during the Poco adagio (the second half of the first movement), in which Jonathan Dimmock’s excellent control of the hushed sounds of the organ allowed any number of intriguing sonorous colors to emerge.
Nevertheless, this symphony amounts to wading through three routine sections to get to the pull-out-all-the-stops outburst that heralds the beginning of the final section. There is no questioning the impact of that opening gesture or the dazzling full-ensemble sonorities that follow. Nevertheless, it was hard to discern any sense of overall shape, meaning that the movement amounted to little more than one outburst after another. As might be guessed, this resulted in a rousing standing ovation, which is probably what Saint-Saëns had in mind. The sonorities may have reverberated a bit on the walk back home, but they had pretty much dispersed by the time I reached the door.
However, if the final movement of Saint-Saëns’ symphony never rises above mere spectacle, Zigman’s concerto providing a sobering reminder that there is no such thing as going too low. The most positive thing that can be said was that Thibaudet seems to have risen to every finger-busting challenge that Zigman committed to notation. Rhetorically, Zigman’s score never departed from cranking out one cliché after another. Indeed, his paucity of ideas resulted in a third movement that came off as little more than a reprise of the first, as if all of the keyboard virtuosity that Thibaudet displayed would have just as much impact the second time he jumped through the same hoops.
Back in my academic days, one of the most damning put-downs of a report of results was, “This material fills a well-needed gap.” Zigman’s music does not fill a gap that should not have been filled in the first place. However, he provides a gap as large as a crater that can be seen from our orbiting International Space Station. Fortunately, Thibaudet did not get lost in that crater; but it seemed a bit of a pity for him to wander into it in the first place.
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