Ferrández Debuts at SFS with Engaging Elgar

Cellist Pablo Ferrández (photograph by Kristian Schuller, courtesy of SFS)

Last night Davies Symphony Hall saw the debut of Spanish cellist Pablo Ferrández, currently on a tour of symphonic debut performances across both the United States and Europe. Performing under the baton of Gemma New leading the San Francisco Symphony (SFS), Ferrández delivered a consistently compelling account of Edward Elgar’s Opus 85 cello concerto in E minor. This is one of those concertos in which the soloist is in the spotlight from the very first thematic statement to the final cadence, and the attentive listener could appreciate every gesture in his delivery.

Taken as a whole, the concerto is a four-movement journey through a landscape of varying dispositions. It was clear that both conductor and soloist commanded a thorough grasp of the entire “lay of the land,” and the attentive listener could appreciate the dispositional qualities of every “way-station” delineating the overall journey. Elgar was at his most expressive when he conceived this concerto, and Ferrández brought every gesture of expression to the attention of the sharply attuned listener. As a result, many of those listeners may well have had those gestures still ringing in the ears, even while heading home after the program had concluded.

This account of Elgar was thus, as they say, “one for the books.” As expected, Ferrández responded to the audience reaction by offering an encore. As also might be expected, he turned to Pablo Casals as a source, following up on the rich sonorities of the concerto with the subdued simplicity of that cellist’s solo arrangement of the Catalan Christmas song “El cant dels ocells” (the song of the birds).

The concerto offering dominated the overall overture-concerto-symphony structure of the program. The evening began with a composition by Grażyna Bacewicz entitled simply “Overture.” She composed it in 1943 in Warsaw, which, at the time, was under German occupation during World War II. As a result, the music did not receive its first performance until September of 1945. Nevertheless, one could appreciate the intensity of the composer’s dispositions reflecting the circumstances surrounding her as she worked on this composition.

In contrast to the overture, the symphony bordered on the insipid. Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 56 (third) symphony in A minor, was inspired by a visit to Scotland. This is a four-movement composition in which each movement repeats its thematic material too many times with almost no sense of an overall journey. Presumably, the composer wanted to express his delight at the many encounters on his visit; but there is just too much “and then … and then” rhetoric in the overall structure. George Balanchine managed to draw audience attention a bit more effectively with his choreography, but even he realized that setting the first movement to ballet would be a hopeless case. Scotland is better honored by a glass of single malt than by any of Mendelssohn’s efforts!