Shoji Returns to Davies as Concerto Soloist

Violinist Sayaka Shoji (photograph by Laura Stevens, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony)

Japanese-born violinist Sayaka Shoji first performed in Davies Symphony Hall in 2017. She was the concerto soloist when the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic presented their Great Performers Series concert. Last night she returned to Davies, this time making her debut as concerto soloist with the San Francisco Symphony under the baton of Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen.

This time there was again a “Russian flavor” to her appearance. Her concerto selection was Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 99 in A minor. While this has been cataloged as his first violin concerto, it is actually a revision of an earlier effort, which had been cataloged as Opus 77. The fact is that Opus 77 was completed in 1948, but the music itself was not published until after it was performed in 1955. The soloist was David Oistrakh, who had a hand in revising the solo part.

To some extent the concerto can be described as “a long night’s journey into day.” One would have thought that 1948 would have been a time of relief over the conclusion of World War II, but Shostakovich could never shake the fear that Stalin and his cronies would be looking over his shoulder. Thus, the opening Nocturne movement is far bleaker in its rhetoric than any of the nocturnes we would associate with Frédéric Chopin or Claude Debussy. This is followed by a frenetic Scherzo movement with Shostakovich’s “autograph” motif DSCH (D, E-flat, C, B natural). The third movement is a dark reflection on a stately dance form that dates back to the early seventeenth century, the passacaglia. The concerto then concludes with an energetic Burlesque in A minor, which wraps up with a triumphant A major conclusion.

Salonen was right at home in delivering all of Shostakovich’s rhetorical twists and turns, and his chemistry with Shoji could not have been better. This was a seriously demanding concerto, but she was consistently responsive to all the challenges the composer had set for the soloist. As might be expected, she responded to the audience demand for an encore, turning to the “usual” source of violin encores, the Caprices for Solo Violin by Niccolò Paganini. To the best of my memory, her selection was the 21st, a lyrical account of multi-string bowing. [update 10/6, 6:25 a.m.: According to Steven Winn’s review for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Paganini encore selection was “a variation and coda on a theme by Giovanni Paisiello.”]

The second half of the program was devoted entirely to Johannes Brahms’ Opus 98 symphony in E minor. This was the last of his four symphonies, and it is particularly distinctive. In the context of last night’s program, a key distinction was the passacaglia structure of the final movement. However, this is less of a stately dance and more of a defiant challenge to fate (nodding, perhaps, at Ludwig van Beethoven). Each embellishment of the basic theme (little more than a chord progression) develops its own unique dark twist. Indeed, the overall disposition could almost be taken as a reflection on Shostakovich’s concerto through one of those warped fun-house mirrors. Salonen knew exactly how to evoke that disposition in all four of the movements, allowing the music to unfold its full intensity all the way up to the final cadence.

This was very much an evening that will be long remembered.