Last night conductor Nicholas Collon made his debut conducting the San Francisco Symphony, but San Francisco also saw the return of one of the more interesting pianists I have encountered over the course of my writing. That pianist is Conrad Tao, who made his SFS debut in February of 2008. I first came to know him through San Francisco Performances, both with the JACK Quartet and as part of the Junction Trio, performing with violinist Stefan Jackiw and cellist Jay Campbell. I also began following his recordings in February of 2012, although the most recent album I covered was American Rage, which dates back about five years. Those past encounters all involved “bleeding edge” repertoire; so last night I was more than a little surprised that Tao’s concerto selection was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 23 (first) piano concerto in B-flat minor (one of those warhorses that consistently “leads the pack”).
Personally, I was delighted to see that Tao was as comfortable playing Tchaikovsky as he has been with composers such as Frederic Rzewski. His chemistry with Collon could not have been better, and Associate Principal Anne Richardson’s cello solo in the Andantino semplice movement added to the freshness of the overall listening experience. Most important was that all of the performing musicians knew exactly how to capture the full richness of Tchaikovsky’s rhetoric without ever going over the top into bombast. This made for a refreshing listening experience, rather than a here-we-go-agin reaction.
As expected, Tao followed up on his concerto performance with an encore. This one was just as familiar as the concerto (if not more so). He played Harold Arlen’s “Over the Rainbow.” Familiar as this was, his approach could not have been more virtuosic. He took his interpretation from a 1958 recording made by Art Tatum. I often wonder whether or not, during his time in Los Angeles, Tatum had any encounters with Rachmaninoff; but I suspect that the latter tended to keep his distance from the jazz world! Nevertheless, Tatum’s capacity for embellishment was just as rich, and Tao delivered a solid account of that richness in every phrase of the Arlen tune.
Photograph of Edward Elgar, probably taken not long after the completion of “Enigma Variations” (unknown photographer, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
The second half of the program, usually allotted to a symphony, was devoted entirely to Edward Elgar’’s Opus 36, best known under the title “Enigma Variations.” Elgar dedicated this composition “to my friends pictured within.” Each of the variations is a character sketch with a cryptic title. As is usually the case, the program book “decoded” all of those titles. (Frederic Ashton did one better by bringing them to life as characters in his ballet “Enigma Variations (My Friends Pictured Within).”) The performance involved another engaging solo turn, this time by Principal Viola Jonathan Vinocour in the “Dorabella” variation. Collon’s command of the overall journey through the fourteen variations could not have been more engaging.
The only disappointment of the evening came at the beginning. Three-piece Suite consists of three excerpts from Thomas Adès opera Powder Her Face rearranged for large ensemble. I have been writing about Adès on this site since 2009. He has an intellectual side that challenges the mind, but that does not necessary result in an engaging listening experience. Since the opera is based on a sex scandal, one would have expected some degree of shock value in its realization through music; but last night’s excerpts never rose about the level of trivially ludicrous. Over the past decades, Adès may have been viewed by many as the “composer of the future;” but, as the old joke goes, that time has passed.
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