SFS: The Best Things Come in Small Packages

Visiting conductor Karina Canellakis (photograph by Mathias Bothor, courtesy of SFS)

Last night the first of three San Francisco Symphony (SFS) performances conducted by Karina Canellakis was framed by two large-scale full-ensemble compositions. The first half of the program was devoted entirely to Richard Strauss’ Opus 35 tone poem “Don Quixote” with visiting cellist Alisa Weilerstein assuming the role of the “knight of the doleful countenance’ and Principal Viola Jonathan Vinocour as the knight’s squire, Sancho Panza. At the other end the program concluded with a vigorously full-throated account of Witold Lutosławski “Concerto for Orchestra.”

However, sandwiched between these two auditory spectacles was the first SFS performance of “D’un soir triste” (of a sad evening), composed originally for piano trio by Lili Boulanger. Lili was the younger sister of Nadia, one of the leading teachers during the first half of the twentieth century with particular impact on American composers too numerous to itemize in this article. (The itemization can be found on a Web page.)

Lili was sickly for most of her life, which was only about 24 and a half years. Nevertheless, she was a productive composer. As James M. Keller’s note for the program book observes, “By the time she died, on March 15, 1918, her catalogue included forty-three extant works, plus twenty-two more whose existence was documented but that have not survived.” “D’un soir triste” was composed after an unsuccessful surgery in July of 1917, coupled with a less melancholy work entitled “D’un matin de printemps” (of a spring morning).

The orchestral version of “D’un soir triste” is as rich in instrumentation as the works performed both before and after it. However, its duration was roughly eleven minutes. Once again I am reminded of Buckminster Fuller’s injunction to make more and more with less and less. Listening to “D’un soir triste,” it was impossible to overlook just how skilled Boulanger was in managing such rich instrumentation.

Indeed, she included an instrument untouched by both Strauss and Lutosławski, the sarrusophone, designed to substitute for oboes and bassoons, particularly in outdoor band music. The program book stated that a contrabassoon would substitute for the sarrusophone, but anyone that knew were Steven Braunstein sat could see that he was playing a sarrusophone! One might almost say that the rich sonorities of Boulanger’s music provided excellent preparation for how Lutosławski deployed his own rich sonorities with a much more aggressive rhetoric that kept the attentive listener on the edge of his/her/their seat. Canellakis’ management of this side-by-side contrast was a reminder of why her return visit was so welcome.

“Don Quixote” was another matter. Strauss composed ten tone poems between 1886 (when his “day job” was as a conductor) and 1915. “Don Quixote” was composed in 1897 after he had honed his narrative skills to produce “Tod und Verklärung” (death and transfiguration) in 1889 and “Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche” (Till Eulenspiegel’s merry pranks) in 1895. However, Miguel de Cervantes’ novel was on an epic scale; and, while Strauss certainly knew how to muster instrumentation on an epic scale, a narrative of epic scale was, sadly, “above his pay grade.”

A case in point will acknowledge this shortcoming while, at the same time, suggest that even the best recording technology cannot do justice to Strauss’ ingenious instrumentation. This was my first encounter with the tone poem in a concert setting. Listening to recordings, I always thought I could differentiate the solo sonorities of cello and viola. Sadly, in watching Vinocour at work, I realized that several solo passages I had taken to be for cello were actually for the viola. In my defense I would argue that Strauss was better at portraying the many facets of Till Eulenspiegel’s character than he was in distinguishing Don Quixote from Sancho Panza! I would probably even doubt that he read the novel in its entirety. (He was in the wrong year and the wrong country for Classics Comics!)

The good news was that Canellakis managed Strauss’ full-scale orchestra resources as deftly as she had taken on the Lutosławski concerto. Her chemistry with both ensemble and soloists was consistently attentive. However, she was at her best with her Boulanger selection, making a solid case that the best things come in small packages!