MTT Delivers a Stunning Variety of Styles

There may be only two composers on the program for this week’s series of subscription concerts by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). However, one of the composers was Igor Stravinsky; and, over the course of his life, Stravinsky would settle into working within different stylistic frameworks with the same facility that Paul Hindemith could exercise when writing solo compositions for just about every instrument of the orchestra. The program thus amounted to three distinctive styles of Stravinsky complemented by a concerto by Joseph Haydn.

Haydn may not have been as prolific as Hindemith when it came to writing solo work for a diversity of instruments. However, his position Kapellmeister for the Esterházy family required enough understanding of the capabilities of every instrument (and instrumentalist) to serve as an effective and expressive leader. Thus, category VII of Anthony van Hoboken’s catalog accounts for eight different instruments: violin, cello, bass, horn, trumpet, flute, oboe, and hurdy-gurdy (lira organizzata). (The barytone and keyboard instruments have their own separate Hoboken categories.)

Compared to many of the other categories, this is a modest collection; and, much to my regret, these entries in the catalog receive far less attention than they deserve. Haydn may be remembered as the “inventor” of the string quartet (and, perhaps, the “reworking” of the trio sonata into the piano trio). Nevertheless, any performance of one of his concertos never fails to remind the attentive listener of the depth of that aforementioned understanding required to write effective and moving solo passages.

The Hoboken VIIb/2 concerto for cello in D major is one of the more frequently played entries in category VII. Last night it was given a splendid account by Oliver Herbert, whose appearance was supported by the Shenson Young Artist Debut Fund. To be fair, however, this was not, strictly speaking, a “debut” event. Herbert made his SFS debut in a SoundBox concert at the end of 2017; and last year he was the All San Francisco Concert soloist, performing Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 33, entitled “Variations on a Rococo Theme.”

Hoboken VIIb/2 serves up a wide diversity of technical challenges, demanding as much command of lyrical expressiveness as of nuts-and-bolts dexterity. Herbert sailed through all of those challenges, consistently homing on just the right phrasing to allow each passage to register with the attentive listener, while also endowing consistent precision to the trickiest of passages. Furthermore, unless I am mistaken, he reflected the spirit of Haydn’s time by providing his own cadenza passages.

On the accompaniment side, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) reduced his string resources to match the two oboes and two horns in the ensemble. The string numbers were a bit larger than one might expect, but only half of them were playing during the cello solo passages. This resulted in an effective account of the relationship between soloist and ensemble that allowed every detail in Herbert’s performance to register clearly with the attentive listener.

That relationship between soloist and ensemble was also critical in all three of the Stravinsky selections on the program. The first half of the program featured the SFS Chorus in two compositions played in reverse chronological order. The opening selection was “Canticum Sacrum,” whose full name is actually “Canticum Sacrum ad honorem Sancti Marci Nominis” (canticle to honor the name of Saint Mark). That title is then reinforced by a dedication: “To the City of Venice, in praise of its Patron Saint, the Blessed Mark, Apostle.” Strictly speaking, however, Stravinsky seems to have been less interested in the legacy of the New Testament and more interested in the basilica erected in Venice in Saint Mark’s name, which is where “Canticum Sacrum” was first performed, conducted by Stravinsky himself on September 13, 1956.

The domes of Saint Mark’s basilica in Venice (photograph by Andreas Tille, from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license)

The piece is in five parts, played without interruption, preceded by the dedication, which is set to music. The third part, in turn, consists of three sections corresponding to the virtues of Charity, Hope, and Faith. There have been attempts to relate this structure to the structure of the basilica itself, particularly its complex of multiple domes. More interesting, however, is that Part II serves as Stravinsky’s first attempt to work with the twelve-tone techniques that had been explored and developed by Arnold Schoenberg. It is also the only piece that Stravinsky composed that requires an organ.

As the Wikipedia page for this piece observes, Stravinsky had no experience with the acoustics of the space in which “Canticum Sacrum” would be performed. His instrumental ensemble was rich in winds and brass (including a contrabass trombone); but strings were limited to violas and basses, along with a harp. The choral work encompasses both monodic chant and pre-Baroque polyphony, all with its own unique decisions of how pitches should sound simultaneously. Finally, there are solo vocal parts for tenor (Nicholas Phan) and baritone (Tyler Duncan).

Stravinsky’s ventures into new territories and trying them out in a resonant space beyond his wildest dreams provoked a certain amount of hostile response. The review in Time (back when reviewers’ names were not given bylines) was entitled “Murder in the Cathedral.” Ironically, SFS has performed this piece only once in the past, when MTT conducted it in May of 1999. While it may be that Stravinsky was experimenting with techniques he had not yet really mastered, last night MTT provided an account that was far more than credible. He seems to have believed that this was music best taken on its own terms, and he managed to give a convincing account of just what those terms were.

“Canticum Sacrum” was followed by the “Symphony of Psalms,” composed in 1930 and revised in 1948. This is much more familiar music, particularly among Stravinsky fans. However, there are ways in which it can be viewed as the planting of seeds that would subsequently bear the fruit of “Canticum Sacrum.” I would even be bold enough to suggest that an encounter with “Symphony of Psalms” provides the listener unfamiliar with Stravinsky’s choral writing with excellent preparation for “Canticum Sacrum.” On the other hand, “Symphony of Psalms” has so much energy that it sends everyone in the audience out to intermission with a bounce in their steps.

In this case the string section is limited to cellos and basses (again with a harp). Winds and brass are abundant and diverse, reinforced this time with timpani and bass drum. Choral work again reflects both chant and the polyphony of a double fugue. MTT’s interpretation captured all of the energy of the outer movements and the intricate ingenuity of the fugue in the middle movement. This particular composition is an “old favorite” of mine; and I could not have been more satisfied with revisiting it after many years.

The program concluded with the “Symphony in Three Movements,” composed in 1945. This was the only full-orchestra piece on the program (and, for that matter, it was Stravinsky’s last major work for full ensemble). Given when it was composed, it is difficult to avoid connotations of wartime; but the music itself is anything but “politicized.” I used to think that the uneven rhythms of the first movement might have been based on Morse code, but last night that speculation was displaced by thoughts of a teletype machine. (Those who think of text only as lights on a display screen are advised to check out the Wikipedia page for background.)

By virtue of the instrumentation, the expressiveness of “Symphony in Three Movements” is more easily apprehended than the vocal offerings in the first half of the program. In this case the assets of MTT’s interpretation lay in the clarity he brought to every contributing instrument and the many ways in which those instruments are combined. The variations between stable and unstable rhythms evoked by Stravinsky are positively mind-boggling. The impeccable command of those rhythms by SFS under MTT’s leadership made this radical rethinking of the concept of symphony a truly memorable occasion.