SFS: First Classical Summer Concert

Last night in Davies Symphony Hall the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) presented the first of its four traditional classical music offerings in the Summer with the Symphony series. The podium saw the return of conductor Erina Yashima, who prepared a straightforward overture-concerto-symphony program. The title of the program was Night in Bohemia, which referred to the symphony selection, Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 88 (eighth) symphony in G major.

While the Opus 95 (ninth) symphony, better known as “From the New World,” will probably always be this composer’s most popular symphony, Opus 88 has definitely established itself in the more-than-honorable second place. It tends to attract more attention in academic circles, due probably to the composer’s inventive approach to the variations form in the final movement. However, there is a refreshing energy to the overall rhetoric, even in the second (Adagio) movement. On the whole Dvořák’s approach to thematic invention and development is up there on the same level as what the listener encounters in Opus 95.

However, what really “seals the deal” for this symphony is the composer’s approach to instrumentation. This is a score that meticulously blends the sonorous qualities of the many different instruments involved in the performance. Indeed, the blending is so meticulous that, more often than not, one is aware of even subtlest of shadings involving differing and distinctive tone colors. Thus, all that subtlety is what makes the concert experience of this music so significant. From a personal point of view, I have encountered more recordings of this symphony than I am capable of enumerating; but last night I found my auditory system drawn to intricately conceived sonorities that elude even the best recording and playback technology.

In other words: If you have not listened to a good concert performance of Opus 88, you have not yet really experienced this symphony.

Fortunately, Yashima was well aware of the full impact of Dvořák’s command of a rich palette of sonorous colorings. As a result, she laid out a path along which the attentive listener could venture and fully grasp no end of engaging details. The score for those details ranges all the way from a passage for solo violin to some of the most engagingly rich blending in the trombone section that one could possible imagine.

There was also much to discover during the first half. The “overture” was the SFS premiere of “Ramal,” composed by Kareem Roustom and inspired by the metric patters of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry. This was followed by Édouard Lalo’s seldom-performed cello concerto in D minor. The cello soloist was Johannes Moser, who had made his SFS debut in 2011.

It would be fair to say that most listeners know of Lalo only through his “Symphonie espagnole.” In spite of its title, this is a five-movement concerto for violin and orchestra, which requires the soloist to jump through a generous number of technical and expressive hoops. The cello concerto consists of only three movements, each beginning with a slow section that is followed by a fast one. The demands on the soloist are highly challenging, probably more so than those required of the solo violinist playing “Symphonie espagnole.” While Moser’s body language suggested that he might have been taking some lessons from Lang Lang, his command of all those technical demands was consistently convincing from start to finish. Indeed, those demands were probably so draining that one could appreciate his not offering an encore selection.

I must confess that it is a bit difficult to account for “Ramal” after only a single listening. Roustom wrote his own commentary for the program book, with particular attention to the role of poetic meter. However, while one could appreciate those rhythmic foundations at the very beginning, the score quickly unfolds to a thickly-textured tapestry, overwhelming even the most attentive listener with more details than could be identified. As a result, that listener can probably be forgiven if, after about ten minutes or so (s)he/they might start wondering about when the performance would end and why it is taking so long to establish termination.

Personally, I would have preferred preparing for this music by having an opportunity to establish some familiarity through a recording. Hopefully, I shall encounter such a recording before I have another opportunity to listen to this music in concert. (Yes, I really would like to listen to this music again!)