Joshua Bell Disappoints on Both Fronts

Violinist-conductor Joshua Bell (photograph by Phillip Knott, courtesy of SFS)

Last night in Davies Symphony Hall the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) presented the latest installment in its Great Performers Series. The “performers” were the members of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields chamber orchestra, led by its Music Director, the violinist Joshua Bell. Bell prepared a program whose first half featured him as soloist in concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach (BWV 1041 in A minor) and Samuel Barber. The second half of the program consisted entirely of Beethoven’s Opus 55 (“Eroica”) symphony in E-flat major, led from the Concertmaster’s chair by Bell.

Bell’s greatest asset is his popularity, and Davies came close to being totally filled with his admirers. From a musical point of view, however, he has often missed the mark in his solo engagements in SFS subscription concerts; but his winning personality always seems to rise above his disconcertingly frequent performance flaws. Last night none of the three selections on the program emerged unscathed, with the account of Bach being the closest to tolerable.

This was probably because Bell’s high spirits would have easily fit right in with those of both performers and customers at Gottfried Zimmermann’s coffee house in Leipzig. Nevertheless, the size of the Academy’s string ensemble was probably too large to fit into Zimmermann’s space (assuming that customers matter more than musicians); and that magnitude rendered the harpsichord continuo work of John Constable pretty much inaudible. That said, the relationship between soloist and ensemble was consistently tolerable; and Bell’s spirited personality fit comfortably into that setting.

The Barber concerto, on the other hand, did not fare as well. While Bell’s account of the solo work was, for the most part, satisfactory, his duties as conductor were sorely neglected. Barber had a keen ear for instrumentation, and almost every measure of the concerto reveals a sonorous gem of its own. As a result, a performance of the concerto demands a conductor that does not overlook any of those gems while consistently keeping the orchestral resources balanced against those of the soloist. Sadly, “balance” does not appear to be in Bell’s vocabulary, let alone his toolbox. All those many colors that Barber had evoked were washed away by Bell’s intense account of the solo part, thus missing the point of why Barber composed a concerto in the first place.

Fortunately, Bell had no opportunity to strut his solo stuff during Beethoven’s Opus 55. However, his attempt to conduct frequently seemed to be following the flow of instrumentation, rather than leading it. For the most part, the members of the ensemble knew how to take care of themselves. (The three horn players deserve special credit for their role in the Scherzo.) As we know from the performances of One Found Sound, a moderately-sized ensemble in which everyone is aware of everyone else can manage even a Beethoven symphony without a conductor. Most likely the Academy musicians have that same skill and probably would have delivered as convincing a performance of Opus 55 in Bell’s absence as they managed in his presence.