Wednesday, March 13, 2019

MTT’s Final Season: the Warhorses

Michael Tilson Thomas (photograph by Brandon Patoc, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony)

Yesterday morning the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) released the announcement of its 2019–20 season. For Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) this season will mark the conclusion of his 25-year tenure as Music Director. It should therefore be no surprise that the San Francisco Chronicle treated this as a full-width front-page story in today’s “Datebook” section. However, readers of this site should know by now that I have not tried to give a thorough account of such an abundant season in a single article; and, in the past, I have limited myself to at most two articles to make note of those events that I was anticipating most enthusiastically.

However, as they say, this time it’s different. There are several different categories that are likely to benefit from independent treatment. I have been digesting the full content since it arrived in my Inbox, and I am not yet sure just how many articles I shall be writing to prepare for the coming season. Nevertheless, I am pretty sure that there will be more than two of them. [correction, 3/19, 1:50 p.m.: It looks as if I was able to fit everything I wanted to say into two articles after all, the second of which has now been posted.] As the headline suggested, I have decided to begin with familiar repertoire and then venture from there into some of the more adventurous regions of the plans for the new season.

When it comes to familiar composers that will figure in the programming for the new season, three names have been set aside in what the press release called the “Masterworks” category. One of those is the name of the composer with a landmark anniversary on the way. Ludwig van Beethoven was baptized (there is no record of a birth certificate) on December 17, 1770, meaning that December of 2020 will mark his 250th birthday. As had been the case with the celebration of the 100th birthday of Leonard Bernstein, MTT has chosen to recognize this occasion over the course of the year leading up to the birthday, rather than the year following it.

This is likely to be the richest account of Beethoven’s music since the three-week Beethoven Festival held in the spring of 2015, which included both an almost complete account of the famous Akademie benefit concert for Beethoven held at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna on December 22, 1808 and a complete concert performance of the Opus 72 opera Fidelio. The offerings for the coming season will include three of the symphonies, Opus 36 (second) in D major, Opus 67 (fifth) in C minor, and Opus 92 (seventh) in A major, as well as two concertos, the Opus 19 (second) piano concerto in B-flat major with Emanuel Ax as soloist and the Opus 61 violin concerto in D major featuring Anne-Sophie Mutter. Mutter will also also be a recitalist in the Great Performers Series, for which she will present an all-Beethoven recital. That same series will also present all-Beethoven recitals by pianists Yefim Bronfman and Igor Levit.

It goes without saying that the season would not adequately honor MTT’s legacy without acknowledging his interpretations of the orchestral music of Gustav Mahler. Indeed, the season will conclude with what will probably be the grandest final gesture of MTT’s tenure, a performance of Mahler’s eighth symphony in E-flat major, known to many as the “Symphony of a Thousand,” even if the headcount of performers almost always falls sort of that number. Vocal soloists will include soprano Erin Wall, mezzos Sophie Koch and Kelley O’Connor, bass-baritone Greer Grimsley, and others yet to be announced. The season repertoire will also include the sixth symphony in A minor and the ninth symphony, which will be featured at a special concert at the Mondavi Center on the campus of the University of California at Davis. Finally, mezzo Sasha Cooke and bass-baritone Ryan McKinny will be the soloists for a performance of the orchestral version of Des Knaben Wunderhorn (the boy’s miraculous horn), settings of twelve of the poems taken from the anthology of folk poetry of the same name compiled by Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano.

The third “Masterworks” composer will be Richard Wagner. My first encounter with the presentation of a semi-staged opera in Davies Symphony Hall took place in June of 2003 with MTT conducting The Flying Dutchman. I have to confess that I was blown away by the imaginative ways in which Director Peter McClintock’s staging established as clear an account of the narrative as MTT had established for the music. Thus, MTT will conclude his tenure by revisiting this opera in June of 2020 with a new approach to staging. Two of the Mahler symphony vocalists will contribute to this performance with Grimsley singing the title role and Koch in the part of Mary. Other members of the cast will be soprano Catherine Nagelstad as Senta, tenor Stuart Skelton as Erik, tenor Ben Bliss as the steersman, and bass Albert Dohmen as Daland. The SFS Chorus will be prepared by its Director, Ragnar Bohlin.

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