1944 portrait of Samuel Barber (photographed by Carl Van Vechten, from Wikimedia Commons, available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID van.5a51697)
The second half of the current San Francisco Symphony (SFS) season got under way last night in Davies Symphony Hall with guest conductor James Gaffigan on the podium. He has spent the better part of this century with SFS, beginning with his debut in December of 2006. He then went on to serve as Associate Conductor between 2006 and 2009. His last appearance was in May of 2021, when he concluded his program with Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings,” originally composed as the second movement of his Opus 11 string quartet.
For his latest appearance, he prepared a “standard” overture-concerto-symphony, using the concerto to provide another Barber selection. This was the Opus 14 violin concerto, composed in 1940. The soloist was Ray Chen, another returning artist. Chen made his debut in January of 2011 and performed as a Shenson Young Artists soloist in a performance of Johannes Brahms’ Opus 77 violin concerto in D major with returning visiting conductor Juraj Valčuha in May of 2018. Barber is, of course, a far cry from Brahms; and I can remember from my student days during the last half of the last century that he quickly fell from grace as trends tended (somewhat ironically) towards both atonality and the pre-Baroque repertoire. Even so, there were soulful qualities in Barber’s concerto that almost seemed to reflect back on Brahms, somewhat to the consternation of those more occupied with “the shock of the new.”
Neither Chen nor Gaffigan had any qualms about letting those soulful qualities run their course. Barber may well have been a friend of every instrument in a full orchestral ensemble, evoking a dazzling spectrum of sonic colors that reinforced the violin solo work, rather than overwhelming it. Yes, there are shadows of Hollywood film scores in many of the textures; but Barber’s expressiveness gave them depth, rather than trivialization. As a result, last night’s account emerged as a thoroughly engaging journey from start to finish (a finish, which, as might be expected, went out with a bang).
That bang then resonated into Chen’s encore selection. This was “Obsession,” the title that Eugène Ysaÿe gave to the first movement in the second of the six solo violin sonatas of his Opus 27. Anyone listening to this movement in the Sixties would have described it as Johann Sebastian Bach on a bad acid trip. Indeed, when the composer added the “Dies irae” sequence to the mix, one could begin to appreciate how the composer was poking fun of those two “obsessions” with music history. Chen gave this short piece a dynamite account, and the audience loved it.
The intermission was followed by the symphony offering: Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 100 (fifth) in B-flat major. This is probably his best-known “mature” symphony, the other popular one being the “classical” first in D major. This was composed in 1944 and was clearly influenced by World War II. There is an intense drive in the tempo for the two fast movements: Allegro marcato and Allegro giocoso. While I appreciate that these were the composer’s reflections on wartime conditions, I must confess that my own reactions have tended towards the prankish. Each movement chugs forward with the full force of a locomotive, and it is hard for me to resist thinking of the train charging towards its encounter with Anna Karenina!
The “overture” for the program was Missy Mazzoli’s “Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres),” composed in 2014. I have to confess that I found it a bit difficult to listen to this piece without reflecting on the P. D. Q. Bach “classic” “Grand Serenade for an Awful Lot of Winds & Percussion” (S. 1000). Unfortunately, Mazzoli does not have Peter Schickele’s sense of humor; and, if her intention was to be serious, the result came across as little more than pretentious. If this music was not particularly engaging (or even sweet), it was at least (to the listener’s advantage) short.
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