Last night definitely marked the high point in the return of Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) to the podium of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) in his new capacity as Music Director Laureate. The program marked not only the return of MTT’s presence but also a revisiting of one of his most frequently-performed offerings, Gustav Mahler’s first symphony in D major. I have lost count of the number of times I have experienced this music in Davies Symphony Hall, but every MTT performance has emerged as a journey of discovery. Mind you, discovery was also experienced with changes in orchestral personnel as new performers encountered their first experiences with MTT’s Mahler insights; and, in that capacity, last night was no exception.
From a compositional point of view, even in this first symphony, Mahler was breaking from any number of “symphonic” conventions. The Inside Music Talk by John Platoff called out several instances of those departures from the beaten path; and, in many respects, he did an excellent job of “priming the pump” to prepare the attentive listener for just how radical this music was. The thing about MTT’s approach to this symphony, however, was that he did not try to underscore any of those instances. It was sufficient to let the score speak for itself, making sure that every phrase was “uttered” with just the right rhetorical expression. From a metaphorical point of view, MTT’s interpretation allowed an extraordinarily large number of pieces to reveal gradually the image behind a vast jigsaw puzzle.
Piano concerto soloist Yuja Wang (photograph by Julia Wesley, courtesy of SFS)
Sadly, the heights of the second half of the program had to rise above the nadir of the first half. If MTT has been consistently at his most engaging when taking on Mahler, his approaches to Franz Liszt have been frustrating to the same extreme degree. From my first encounter with one of his Liszt performances, I was aware of his efforts to portray Liszt as if he were the heavy metal rock star of his day. Last night’s program began with Liszt’s first piano concerto in E-flat major with pianist Yuja Wang as the soloist, and the experience was disappointingly misguided from the very opening gesture.
I have been following Wang’s visits to Davies pretty much since I moved to the Bay Area in 1995. That makes for over a quarter-century of experiences, and she has been one of the most consistently satisfying performers I have encountered. As a result, to say that I was disappointed to sit there and listen to her bang away at the opening keyboard gestures of Liszt’s concerto would be the height of understatement. The whole affair reminded me of my favorite corollary to Murphy’s Law: If brute force is unsuccessfully applied, that means you are not applying enough of it.
To be fair to Liszt, the score is not entirely about flamboyant virtuosity from start to finish. If the concerto has any virtue at all, it is the was in which he has the piano soloist engage with instrumental soloists from different sections of the orchestra. These are the rare moments when both pianist and ensemble pull back form all the sound and fury and get to indulge in a well-executed phrase or two. (Even the triangle gets to engage in a witty exchange.) The fact is that, while Liszt’s comfort zone was definitely the keyboard, he had more than a few good ideas when it came to composing for an instrument ensemble. Had a few more of them been summoned for his first piano concerto, the listening experience would probably have been far less agonizing.
After all, it is not about being “hip” (or even “cool”); it’s just about providing an engaging listening experience.
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