Music from Both Ends of the Nineteenth Century

SFS Conductor Laureate Herbert Blomstedt (photograph by Martin Langemann, from the event page for this concert)

This afternoon Herbert Blomstedt, Conductor Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS), made his annual return to the SFS podium. He is now 95 years old, and he was escorted on and off the stage of Davies Symphony Hall by Assistant Concertmaster Wyatt Underhill, who led the ensemble for this program. Blomstedt was seated while conducting, but his nuanced cues and expressive phrases were as stimulating as ever.

The program consisted only of two symphonies, one from either end of the nineteenth century, separated by the intermission. Both were written by composers born in Bohemia. The second half of the program was the more familiar, presenting Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 88 (eighth) symphony in G major. The first half, on the other hand, presented a symphony being performed by SFS for the very first time. This was Jan Vaclav Voříšek’s Opus 23, his symphony in D minor, which he completed on January 21, 1823. However, the music was not published in his lifetime or even, for that matter, in the nineteenth century. The score did not appear in print until 1957.

Voříšek’s life was a short one. He died on November 19, 1825, about half a year after his 34th birthday. He studied law at the University of Prague but did not graduate. He also took some composition lessons from Václav Tomášek; but in 1813 he moved to Vienna, where his attention shifted from a law degree to further study of music. He was introduced to both Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert; and in 1818 he served as a conductor for the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Society of Friends of Music).

Blomstedt’s decision to introduce him to SFS audiences was a valuable one. Voříšek’s Opus 23 is a relatively short symphony, but each of its movements has its own distinctly expressive character. Blomstedt conducted an appropriately reduced string section, which was joined by pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, and trumpets, along with a historically appropriate set of timpani. By the time the final movement had concluded, it was clear that much (if not most) of the audience was eager to express appreciation for the journey they had just experienced.

On the other hand one could easily tell that much of the audience was already familiar with the Dvořák journey. Nevertheless, Blomstedt’s impeccable balance of the sonorities of the much larger ensemble and his insights applied to accounting for every phrase made this a sit-up-and-listen experience, even for those that felt they already knew this music by heart. The result was a particularly refreshing afternoon, capped off by the springlike weather the audience encountered upon leaving Davies.