Gimeno’s Impressive Debut Leading SFS

SFS visiting conductor Gustavo Gimeno (photograph by Marco Borggreve, courtesy of SFS)

Last night in Davies Symphony Hall, Spanish conductor Gustavo Gimeno made his debut in conducting the San Francisco Symphony (SFS), presenting the first of this week’s three subscription concerts. His concerto soloist was a much more familiar face to those following the classical music scene in this city, pianist Javier Perianes. Perianes made his debut in Davies in June of 2015, playing Manuel de Falla’s “Nights in the Gardens of Spain” under the baton of Charles Dutoit. He returned in October of 2018, this time with Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado; but his concerto selection was the last of Béla Bartók’s three piano concertos. He also made his San Francisco recital debut with San Francisco Performances (SFP) in May of 2017. COVID-19 prevented his return to SFP, where he had been scheduled to give a duo recital with violist Tabea Zimmermann, leaving us to be content with the harmonia mundi album Cantilena, which they would have previewed during their San Francisco visit.

For those of us following Perianes’ repertoire, last night provided our first opportunity to listen to his approach to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. His selection was the K. 467 piano concerto in C major. Those of my generation probably remember when this concerto was played to death after its second movement was heavily featured in the 1967 Swedish film Elvira Madigan. It probably took most of us about half a century to shake that clichéd association and go back to enjoying the many virtues of this concerto in its entirety.

Perianes’ partnership with Gimeno could not have been more engaging. This string section is joined by one of the larger complements of winds and brass: one flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, and two trumpets, and timpani. (The limitation of a single flute shows up frequently in Mozart’s instrumentations. Apparently, he did not like the instrument very much, which makes it ironic that it should have been the focus of his K. 620 opera The Magic Flute.) Timpanist Edward Stephan played a pair of “historical” instruments, to which he returned for the final selection on the program, Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 90 (“Italian”) symphony in A major.

It was clear from the opening measures that Gimeno would command a reliably solid account of Mozart. HIs resources were reduced, but not so much as to weaken the rhetoric of the outer movements, which could alternate between assertive and playful as the score required. Playfulness also figured significantly in the exchanges between ensemble and soloist. As a result, each of those movements served up its own take on enthusiasm without ever devolving into raucousness. The middle Andante movement then served as a “spacer” with its own compelling rhetoric of quietude. K. 467 remains one of the most frequently performed of Mozart’s concertos, but the partnership of Gimeno and Perianes could not have provided a more refreshing account.

As already mentioned, the Mozart concerto, which concluded the first half of the program, was complemented by the final work on the program, Mendelssohn’s Opus 90 symphony. Gimeno’s account of this frequently-performed symphony was as refreshing as his approach to familiar Mozart. The outer movements were given vigorous interpretations with a steady confidence that all that enthusiasm would not run off the rails. My own impression was that Gimeno was more attentive to the interplay of the variety of instrumental sonorities than I have encountered in interpretations by other conductors, who have seemed more interested in the thematic material than in Mendelssohn’s approaches to instrumentation. The inner movements were presented as a “core of quietude;” and both of them benefitted from Gimeno’s appreciation of the subtleties of phrasing.

Each of these familiar offerings was preceded by a sharply-contrasting shorter selection. The program began with the West Coast premiere on Unsuk Chin’s “subito con forza” (suddenly with force). Her point of departure was the high-intensity opening of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 62 “Coriolan” overture, composed for a performance of the play by Heinrich Joseph von Collin of the same name. Indeed, as James M. Keller put it in his program note, the first four seconds quote the opening of Beethoven’s overture; but, after that, all hell breaks loose. In the spirt of P. D. Q. Bach’s “Grand Serenade for an Awful Lot of Instruments,” “subito con forza” extends full-orchestra resources with “an awful lot” of percussion.

The result was rather in the spirit of a roller coaster ride. Those first four seconds provide a faster-than-usual ascent, after which the attentive listener experiences a wild ride that just keeps getting wilder. It goes without saying that the visual experience of coordination in the percussion section was as much fun as Chin’s no-holds-barred rhetoric. If Gimeno wanted to command audience attention through his very first gestures from the Davies podium, he could not have done a better job.

Chin has been recognized as a significant composer for the better part of this century. Ironically, her music also led off last month’s series of subscription concerts with the performance of “Graffiti.” Prior to that time, however, I think it would be fair to say that, here in San Francisco, her name was more familiar than her music. Perhaps these two performance will serve as an alert for better awareness of more of her compositions.

The second half of the program began with György Ligeti’s “Concert românesc” (Romanian concerto). This was last performed in Davies at an SFS Youth Orchestra (SFSYO) concert conducted by Christian Reif in May of 2018. Before that, Edwin Outwater conducted it at an SFS subscription concert in October of 2013. When I wrote about the SFSYO performance I joked that this was composed “before Ligeti started sounding like Ligeti.” Indeed, the music is closer in spirt to the two Opus 11 compositions by George Enescu entitled “Romanian Rhapsody.” In that context it is easy to appreciate both the high spirits of the thematic material and Ligeti’s rhetorical skills. Once again, there was an abundance of percussion instruments; but only two performers were needed to manage them all. The score also included the “sound effect” of a distant echoing horn, which, in this case, was played from behind the Center Terrace seating.