The First of the Two Classical Offerings in Davies

As usual, the classical repertoire performed by the San Francisco Symphony is limited during Summer with the Symphony programming. Last night the ensemble performed the first of its two programs, Spanish Favorites, conducted by Carlos Miguel Prieto. The soloist was guitarist Pablo Sáinz-Villegas performing Joaquín Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez.” Readers may recall that this composition was performed in a three-guitar arrangement on an OMNI on-Location video a little over a month ago. However, unless I am mistaken, this was my first encounter with a concert performance of the music in its original instrumentation.

This provided an excellent opportunity to appreciate both Rodrigo’s many talents as a composer exhibited through Sáinz-Villegas’ accounts of those talents. However, one could also appreciate, just as much, the rich coloration arising from the composer’s imaginative capacity for instrumentation. This was a “concerto for solo and orchestra” with a plethora of richly engaging sonorities, and Prieto always found just the right balance between soloist and ensemble.

Those sonorities were also richly on display during the opening selection. This consisted of orchestrations of four of the movements from Isaac Albéniz’s Opus 47, a collection of eight movements for solo piano entitled Suite española. The selections were orchestrated by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, who was previously better known to me as a conductor. Ironically, I had first encountered those movements on an old hand-me-down LP; and many years elapsed before I finally encountered a recording of the entire suite played on the piano. Much as I prefer that version, I was definitely impressed by the orchestral setting, which made full use of just about all available instrumental resources.

The second half of the program was devoted entirely to “The Three-Cornered Hat,” music composed for Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes by Manuel de Falla. The scenario concerns the failed efforts of a Corregidor (and his hat) to engage in a dalliance with a miller’s wife. The structure on the program sheet offered little by way of an account of the ballet’s narrative, but the program note provided a more useful précis. Nevertheless, the music did not make much of an impression on its own; but the three interjections by mezzo Nikola Printz (each from a different location in the hall) were heavenly!

The monument to Francisco Tárrega in Castellón, Spain (photograph by Trewert, public domain, from a Wikimedia Commons Web page)

More engaging was the encore following the Rodrigo concerto. This was the “Gran jota Aragonesa” by Francisco Tárrega (which would later be appropriated by Mikhail Glinka). This solo guitar composition was a lively account, which could not have been a better addition to the overall Spanish flavor of the evening.