SFSymphony+ Launches Chamber Music

A little less than a month ago the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) and Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen announced the launch of the SFSymphony+ streaming service. Two series were featured in this new service, the continuation of SoundBox programming and the CURRENTS series exploring different musical cultures. Last week SFS announced that SFSymphony+ would also stream a Chamber Music Series. Before the lockdown of the War Memorial, one of my favorite ways of spending a Sunday afternoon was listening to chamber music performed by SFS members in Davies Symphony Hall; so I was particularly glad to learn that my “chamber music fix” would once more be satisfied.

SFS violinist Helen Kim playing Beethoven (courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony)

This afternoon I made my first visit to this new service. This was a half-hour video of a performance of the first of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 9 string trios, composed in the key of G major. The performers were violinist Helen Kim, violist Jonathan Vinocour, and cellist Sébastien Gingras; and the recording was made on the Davies stage.

I am familiar with all three of these musicians, but I feel that special acknowledgement to Kim is in order. Readers may recall that, at one of the first events I covered this year, Kim played John Cage’s “Eight Whiskus” to accompany the Post:ballet performance of a solo dance by Emily Hansel, which she choreographed jointly with Post:ballet Director Robert Dekkers. Unless I am mistaken, this is the first time I have encountered a performer on any instrument that is as comfortable playing Cage as (s)he is playing Beethoven. (Those familiar with Cage’s biography probably know that he did not have a particularly glowing opinion of Beethoven!)

The three Opus 9 trios were composed in 1797 and 1798, and they are yet another reminder of Beethoven’s rich capacity for wit. Indeed, Beethoven may not have had a particularly congenial relationship as a student of Joseph Haydn; but he clearly learned more than a thing of two about the master’s seemingly endless repertoire of witty devices. As a result, many of Beethoven’s early compositions (which would have been performed during the final years of Haydn’s life) may well have been written in the spirit of “anything you can do, I can do better.”

The SFS players had no trouble making sure that the many witty turns in the G major trio registered with the attentive listener. Indeed, in spite of the face masks, one could suspect from all the exchanges of eye contact that everyone was having a delightful time. If there was any problem, it involved a video crew that did not seem to be familiar with the music, meaning that, all too often, the camera was dwelling on one performer while another happened to be taking the lead. The fact is that, in this music, such exchanges are passed from one player to another so rapidly that a single shot of the ensemble for the duration of the score would have been sufficient, if not optimal.

Nevertheless, this trio has been a personal favorite ever since I came to know it through the RCA album of violinist Jascha Heifetz, violist William Primrose, and cellist Gregor Piatigorsky. Nothing could be more delightful than encountering a new gathering of musicians, who clearly had their own ideas in approaching the rich rhetoric of Beethoven’s score. The SFSymphony+ Chamber Music Series is definitely off to a delightful and satisfying start.