Salonen Returns with Bold 20th-Century Program

Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard (photograph by Julia Wesely, courtesy of SFS)

Last night San Francisco Symphony (SFS) Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen returned to Davies Symphony Hall to conduct the first of a series of four subscription programs all highlighting the piano. Last night’s pianist was Pierre-Laurent Aimard performing Béla Bartók’s second piano concerto. Readers may recall that he had played Bartók’s first concerto this past June towards the end of the 2021–22 subscription season. Last night’s program sheet informed the audience that Aimard’s performance was being recorded for future release. Presumably, that release will account for all three Bartók piano concertos, meaning that we should look forward to next season to encounter the third concerto.

The second concerto is, by far, the brashest and gutsiest of the three. Not only does it keep the soloist busy with high-intensity themes based on forceful rhythms, but also the accompaniment is provided by a very large ensemble of richly diverse sonorities in the wind, brass, string, and percussion sections. As is often the case, the middle movement captures the many spooky qualities of Bartók’s “nocturnal” rhetoric. Lest some think that this is where the pianist gets a break, the movement is in ABA form with the Adagio “A” sections flanking a hyper-charged Presto in the middle. The overall result dialed the rhetoric up to eleven; and, while the audience may not have been as exhausted at the conclusion as the performers were, there was definitely a sense that considerable energy had been expended.

That intense energy returned after the audience was allowed to take a break for the intermission. The second half of the program consisted of eleven selections from Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 64 score for the ballet Romeo and Juliet. Prokofiev himself had extracted several suites from that score, as well as selections arranged for chamber music. Last night, however, Salonen made his own choices, independent of any of the composer’s.

To some extent his eleven selections followed the narrative of William Shakespeare’s play. The “Balcony Scene” (listed in the program as “Romeo and Juliet”) appeared roughly in the center of the journey. As might be expected, much of the intensity reflected the bad blood between the Montagues and the Capulets; and that intensity was highest in the “Death of Tybalt” movement (which seems to have been designed to provide Lady Capulet with a broad playing field for overacting). Like the Bartók concerto, composed roughly half a decade earlier, Prokofiev’s score never misses an opportunity to pull out all the stops. Nevertheless, I prefer encountering that score while there is a ballet taking place on the stage; so I am less likely to accuse the composer of overplaying his hand.

The program began with the orchestral version of Maurice Ravel’s suite Le Tombeau de Couperin. This basically served as “the calm before the storm.” François Couperin is present only in the forms associated with the titles of the four movements. Everything else is pure Ravel with that composer’s impeccable sense of balance among the winds and strings (including a harp). (There are a few brief passages for trumpet.) Salonen found just the right spirit to reflect the intimacy of the music and the transparency of the individual instrumental lines.