The First of Elim Chan’s SFS Performances

Last night Davies Symphony Hall saw the return to the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) podium by Elim Chan. This was her first SFS performance since her appointment as Music Director Designate earlier this year. She prepared a “three centuries” program with the first half accounting for different periods in the nineteenth century. The second half marked the transition from the late twentieth century to the early 21st.

Both halves of the program began with performances by the SFS Chorus led by Director Jenny Wong. The opening selection was Johannes Brahms’ Opus 82 “Nänie,” setting a text by Friedrich Schiller. The first line is “Even the beautiful must die!,” which basically sets the tone of the entire composition. Noam Cook provided the English translation of the text, which was projected above the stage on the right and left sides of the hall. This encouraged the attentive listener to experience how Brahms’ music reflected on Schiller’s text.

The intermission was followed by a radical shift in rhetoric with the performance of Arvo Pärt’s setting of the Magnificat canticle. Situated on the very left edge of the chorus, soprano Ellen Leslie sang the solo portions of the score. This was the first time the Chorus performed the Pärt composition; and I very much hope that it will not be the last, particularly since my own encounters with Pärt’s vocal music have been very sparse!

Kathleen Ferrier as Orfeo with the “Blessed Spirits” in a performance of Gluck’s opera in the Netherlands on June 23, 1949 (photograph by Daan Noske, made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication, from Wikimedia Commons)

“Nänie,” which was probably unfamiliar to the audience, was followed by one of the most familiar compositions in the “standard repertoire.” That was Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 64, his violin concerto in E minor. The soloist was Renaud Capuçon, who has not performed with SFS since 2014. His chemistry with Chan, who dispensed with a baton in favor of “whole-body” conducting, could not have been better. However familiar this music was to much (most?) of the audience, Capuçon quickly and firmly encouraged every listening to sit up and take notice; and, as they say in “show business,” the effort was definitely worth “the price of admission!” His encore was the theme of the “Dance of the Blessed Spirits,” the ballet performed in the second act of Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera Orfeo ed Euridice.

The program concluded with a three-movement symphony based on the music that John Adams composed for his opera Doctor Atomic. While I remember seeing this opera performed by San Francisco Opera, none of the music triggered any memories. That said, there were some thoroughly engaging passages for solo work for both the trombone and the trumpet. Ironically, these took place during the middle movement entitled “Panic.” I am afraid that little in this music reminded me of the opera, but there was more than enough in the SFS performance to keep me sitting up to take notice!