Boreyko’s Refreshing Introduction to Zemlinsky

Visiting conductor Andrey Boreyko (photograph by Christoph Rüttger, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony)

Last night in Davies Symphony Hall, Andrey Boreyko made his second visit as guest conductor to lead the San Francisco Symphony in a dazzling performance of Alexander von Zemlinsky’s “Die Seejungfrau” (the mermaid). Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” and organized in three movements, this piece was described by Zemlinsky as a “symphonic poem.” The music is not so much a narrative account of Andersen’s tale as it is a musical reflection on not only the plot but also the diverse descriptive elements that come into play as the story unfolds.

There have been few opportunities to listen to Zemlinsky’s music in Davies. The most memorable dates all the way back to June of 2006, when James Conlon visited and devoted the entire second half of his program to a concert performance of the one-act opera “Eine florentinische Tragödie” (a Florentine tragedy), based on a one-act play by Oscar Wilde. Zemlinsky championed the music of both Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schoenberg (the latter became his brother-in-law) and taught Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

He definitely had a keen ear for instrumental sonorities; and, in many respects, one can appreciate his position between Mahler and Schoenberg. Like Mahler, Zemlinsky knew how to pull out all of the metaphorical stops, unleashing the full force of a large symphony orchestra; but he was also capable of evoking episodes of poignant stillness. Indeed, his command of such a wide diversity of emotional evocations fits the character development of Andersen’s tale like a glove.

At the same time Zemlinsky had no end of imaginative ways to work with small combinations of instruments within the orchestra, often evoking other-worldly sonorities that, again, are entirely consistent with fairy-tale rhetoric. Both of these sides of Zemlinsky would work their way into Schoenberg’s orchestral writing. On the grand scale there was the Gurre-Lieder (songs of Gurre) cantata, which, in many respects, amounts to a reflection back on Mahler’s cantata Das klagende Lied (song of lamentation). However, those elements of transparency within a large ensemble began to surface as Schoenberg moved away from conventions of tonality in his Opus 16 set of five orchestral pieces.

Boreyko clearly understood the full scope of expressiveness in “Die Seejungfrau.” Rather than relating Andersen’s story with the sort of narrative technique one encounters in the tone poems of Richard Strauss, Zemlinsky organized his symphony poem (which lasts about three-quarters of an hour) around a relatively limited set of thematic building blocks. He then allows those elements to explore the many possibilities of relating to each other as an alternative to the complex interpersonal relations one encounters in Andersen. The result is a bit of an emotional roller coaster ride, but anyone comfortable with listening to Mahler’s symphonies should have no trouble adjusting to that rhetorical stance.

If Boreyko knew every last detail of Zemlinsky’s expressive devices, he knew how to pass that knowledge to the SFS players. They, in turn, could not have been more responsive. The stage was filled to capacity with instrumentalists, and it seemed as if every last one of them was locked into the full gamut of Boreyko’s gestures from the sweepingly grand to the barely noticeable. The result could not have been better justification for indulging in the expressive richness of a distinctively large ensemble.

Indeed, the overwhelmingly positive impressions of Zemlinsky more than compensated for a truly regrettable account of Johannes Brahms’ Opus 83 (second) piano concerto in B-flat major. The soloist for this occasion was Emanuel Ax, and he was just not up to his usual game. His dynamic levels at the keyboard were unbelievably erratic; and, when he was on the thundering side of his rhetorical pendulum, his precision tended to wane. On the instrumental side Boreyko never seemed to be able to keep his strings balanced, often resulting in extended passages of inner voices (or even the lowest-register ones) barely emerging as audible. Apparently, all of that attention to detail in Zemlinsky left little time for Brahms; but, alas, even in better circumstances Brahms can not be left to tend for himself.

Nevertheless, the audience received Ax enthusiastically; so much so that he returned for an encore. This turned out to be the high point of his visit. Presumably as a “response” to the extended cello solo that begins the third movement of Opus 83, Ax decided to team up with Associate Principal Cello Peter Wyrick (who had played the solo) for a bit of chamber music by Robert Schumann. They played the first of the Opus 73 “fantasy” pieces, composed in 1849. Schumann wrote these three pieces for clarinet and piano but directed that the clarinet could be replaced by either a violin or a cello. Wyrick could not have made a better case for the cello option, and the result of his interplay with Ax could not have been more engagingly expressive. This was the “smallest package” of the entire evening; but it contained a thoroughly unforgettable gem.