Two Richard Strauss/Maurice Ravel Pairings

Conductor Karina Canellakis (from the SFS Web page for the concert being discussed)

Yesterday afternoon saw Karina Canellakis return to the podium of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) for this week’s concert given three performances. Her program was particularly interesting for its overall structure. Each half concluded with a major composition by Maurice Ravel. The first of these was his D major piano concerto with a solo part to be played by the left hand alone, composed in 1930. The conclusion of the program presented “La Valse,” which Ravel completed a decade earlier in 1920. Each of these pieces was preceded by a tone poem that Richard Strauss composed in 1889. The program began with his Opus 20 “Don Juan;” and the second half opened with “Death and Transfiguration,” his Opus 24.

All four of these compositions benefit from the foundation of a thorough talent for instrumentation. In other words, for the most part, the SFS musicians were kept busy from start to finish! What was important was that, in the face of the breadth of resources, Canellakis always found the right ways in which to make sure that all those sonorities blended properly while, at the same time, consistently accounting for the diversity of thematic material. As a result, the attentive listener could benefit from the rich variety of both similarities and differences encountered in the sonorous qualities of each of the four scores she conducted.

The concerto soloist was Cédric Tiberghien. Between his focus on the keyboard and Canellakis’ attention to balance, one could appreciate the full richness that Ravel summoned without straining the limitation of commanding the keyboard with only a single hand. The work is in a single movement and nods almost vaguely to the structural framework one expects from a nineteenth-century keyboard concerto. Indeed, one might almost conjecture that Ravel was more interested in structuring sonorities, rather than thematic material. To the extent that they can be identified, many of the themes are fragmented with only a few episodes in which more extensive “sentence structure” unfolds. Nevertheless, while Ravel clearly wanted to depart from tradition, all of the contributing musicians brought a coherence to the performance with a clarity that was consistent from the opening murmurs to the “Bang!” that concludes the entire composition.

Such fragmentation tends to beget ambiguity, and ambiguity provides the core for the musical discourse that unfolds in “La Valse.” One would do well to make note of when this music was composed … not too long after the armistice that concluded World War One. From a personal point of view, I have always imagined a rather opulent ball associated with this music; but all the men at that ball have sustained serious injuries, most of which required the loss of at least one limb.

I am not sure what Canellakis’ own thoughts about any underlying narrative might be, but she certainly knew how to summon up a disquieting rhetoric over the course of the entire composition. (Most important was that she knew how to take the entire ensemble to dynamic extremes on both the soft and the loud sides.) The result left the attentive listener drawn into the music from the opening measure all the way through to the abruptly shattering final cadence.

Richard Strauss composed ten tone poems, the first eight of which were written in the late nineteenth century and constitute most of the composer’s earliest achievements of substance. Yesterday afternoon’s selections were the second and fourth, respectively, in that list. It would be fair to say that, in both settings, Strauss was more interested in a wide diversity of sonorities and thematic content than he was in narrative. Indeed, where Opus 20 is concerned, the music is more a reflection on a legendary figure than a narrative of his achievements. However, since that reflection is achieved through highly imaginative approaches to instrumentation (all of which could be appreciated through Canellakis’ meticulous attention to detail), the attentive listener can simply enjoy the ride without worrying too much about where it is headed.

In Opus 24 one can easily account for the realization of each of the two nouns in the title. Here again, however,  Strauss has no trouble leaving the building-blocks of narrative by the wayside. The “poem” of the tone poem is one of dispositions, rather than events; and the overall title provides the classification for those dispositions. Each of them, of course, is realized through just the right blend of thematic content and instrumentation.

Mind you (probably because this is music) the journey from “first noun” to “second noun” tends to wander, rather than following a straight path. However, as in Opus 20, that wandering leads to a plethora of imaginative instrumental sonorities, which consistently transcend any mundane account of the title. Once again Canellakis knew exactly how to allow each of those sonorities to flourish, seizing and holding the attentive listener from start to finish.