Intense Concerto and Symphony at SFS

Violin soloist Leila Josefowicz (from the event page for this week’s SFS concert)

Last night in Davies Symphony Hall, Music Director Designate Esa-Pekka Salonen conducted the first of three performances of the second program he prepared for his visit to the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). This program followed the usual overture-concerto-symphony structure; but there was nothing usual about any of the offerings. Most important was the return of Salonen’s own music. Violin soloist Leila Josefowicz returned to perform again the violin concerto that Salonen had written for her in 2009, first performed in Davies on December 8, 2011, the date of the 100th anniversary of the very first SFS performance. (It should go without saying that Salonen was the conductor on that occasion.)

This is a concerto that pushes the very semantic foundations of “virtuoso” to the utmost limits. The symphony is structured in four movements, the first three of which are played without interruption (notwithstanding the notation on the program sheet suggesting that there are no interruptions between any of the movements). However, one could probably say that the concerto begins with a breakneck cadenza into which instruments in the orchestra insinuate themselves gradually, almost suggesting that they serve as a 21st-century take on a seventeenth-century continuo. Nevertheless, the orchestra does begin to establish its own identity, often in unexpected ways. (The use of a full array of pitched gongs is particularly chilling.)

The idea of a final movement detached from the preceding three has its own connotations. The movement is entitled “Adieu;” and it is easy to appreciate the rhetoric of leave-taking. However, it also recalls the fact that “Der Abschied” (the farewell), the final movement of Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (the song of the earth), makes for a distinctive change from the five movements that preceded it. Indeed, it is only in “Adieu” that the violinist sheds an almost diabolical obsession with brutally demanding technique and settles into the most lyrical rhetoric of the entire concerto. As a conductor Salonen knew exactly how to enable this turn-on-a-dime shift in the overall tenor of the compositions; and Josefowicz confidently followed his lead into what amounted to an entirely new domain of expressiveness.

It goes without saying that this is decidedly not “sit back and listen” music. Future generations may find it to be the “comfortable old shoe” that we currently associate with, for example, Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 64 violin concerto in E minor; but, most likely, none of us will be part of that audience. Nevertheless, Salonen’s concerto is definitely an edge-of-your-seat affair, particularly for attentive listeners; and we all deserve to get to know it better. Personally, I do not wish to wait another nine years before my next opportunity to listen to this music in performance.

Equally intense was Salonen’s performance of Carl Nielsen’s Opus 50 (fifth) symphony. This music has its own dark rhetoric; and, for all we know, Salonen’s rich experience in conducting Nielsen’s music may well have had at least an implicit impact on his approach to writing a violin concerto. Certainly, the idea of an overall architecture of two sections, which then break down into distinct episodes, is as significant to Nielsen’s Opus 50 as it was to (at least) the first sequences of movements in Salonen’s concerto.

Unlike the concerto, however, Nielsen’s symphony is a study in the interplay of a rich diversity of sonorities. The eye is as engaged in the ear in efforts to discern which sonorities are coming from where. Indeed, sonority even rises above thematic material: As the symphony progresses, one begins to appreciate how often previously-encountered themes (or motifs) return.

Nevertheless, for all of the explicit and implicit symmetries of structure, Opus 50 will probably be remembered as the only symphony to include virtuoso composition for the snare drum. This was music that allowed Percussion Principal Jacob Nissly to demonstrate just how strong his command of technique was. The first entry of the snare drum is relatively innocuous, suggesting little more than a routine military procession. However, during the Adagio non troppo that concludes the symphony’s first distinct section, the snare drum ventures into territory of its own with almost psychotic outbursts of riffs that totally abandon any sense of underlying rhythm. (Nissly played this provocative cadenza from the Terrace, while he played the first snare drum passage on the stage, but separated from the other percussion players.) I have listened to this symphony many times, both in Davies and on recordings; but Nissly’s account of that cadenza scared the daylights out of me. Following the cadenza, he took on a shoulder-mounted snare drum; and his “last word” could be heard off-stage and out of sight.

Thanks to the interests and efforts of Herbert Blomstedt, San Francisco has long been a city in which those wishing to listen to Nielsen’s music, particularly his symphonies, could be well satisfied. Now we have Salonen, who is bringing his own personal stamp to that repertoire. This is a distinctively new style with different approaches to managing that composer’s flood of thematic material. It cannot be compared with Blomstedt’s legacy. Suffice it to say that, under Blomstedt, serious listeners learned a lot about Nielsen’s ingenuity and subtleties. Now we have Salonen to show us that there are still new approaches to listening to Nielsen’s prodigious creativity.

Reader’s may recall that this program also merited Beethoven250 status, even if Ludwig van Beethoven was represented only by an overture. The overture was taken from Opus 117, the commemorative cantata entitled King Stephen. The cantata itself is seldom performed, but the orchestra has become a concert favorite. Salonen chose to highlight the contrasting differences in volume and instrumentation, taking a playful attitude of highlighting those contrasts through exaggeration. The result was a bit on the eccentric side. However, as one that continues to undermine the “scowling Beethoven” tradition, I have to say that Salonen seemed to be going for the belly-laughs; and, without compromising the score as Beethoven wrote it, he pulled off unanticipated rhetorical twists that allowed us to appreciate Beethoven’s capacity for amusement.