Thoroughly Engaging Fauré from SFS Chorus

The organ by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll at La Madeleine, which would have been used when Fauré’s Opus 48 was first performed (photographer identified as “Mbzt,” from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license)

Unless I am mistaken, last night was the first opportunity this season to listen to the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) Chorus, prepared by Director Jenny Wong, perform in Davies Symphony Hall. The second half of the program was devoted entirely to Gabriel Fauré’s Opus 48 setting of the Requiem Mass text. This is an almost entirely choral performance with only one solo opportunity for soprano (Liv Redpath) and a few more for bass-baritone (Michael Sumuel). The conductor was Kazuki Yamada, making his SFS debut.

Fauré’s setting is not a complete one. Most evident is the absence of the Dies irae sequence. This is consistent with the observation on this composition’s Wikipedia page: “Its focus is on eternal rest and consolation.” The Dies irae text offers neither of those! Nevertheless, the work was first performed for a funeral Mass that took place in the Parisian church La Madeleine in 1888. The music has an almost understated quality, which seems to suggest that Fauré did not wish to intrude on the liturgical setting.

In last night’s more secular conditions, however, one could appreciate Fauré’s efforts strictly for their musical virtues. Most of the score involves what amounts to a discreet understatement of the text’s reflections on death. While I have not examined the score in detail, I suspect that the dynamics that rise above mezzo-piano are few and far between. In addition, many of the instrumental passages involve a transparency that contrasts with the homophonic settings for the full chorus. While I have several recordings of this music, last night may well have been my first encounter with it in performance; and, as the work advanced from one movement to the next, I found myself more and more wrapped up in the many meticulous details in the score.

The concerto portion of the program was also French. Ravel’s G major piano concerto was composed not too long after the Fauré selection. The soloist was Hélène Grimaud, who is no stranger to that repertoire. However, even if she knows that concerto like the back of her hand, she brought an engaging freshness to last night’s performance. Ravel, of course, paid as much attention to instrumentation as he did to the solo work; and his concerto has one of the most abundant panoplies of sonorities that can be found in the piano concerto repertoire. Ravel clearly prioritized the interplay of soloist and ensemble, and Yamada could not have done a better job in bringing that interplay to audience attention.

For the “overture” of the program, Yamada chose to give the United States premiere of a recent (2021) composition by Japanese composer Dai Fujikura entitled “Entwine.” The music itself certainly lived up to its name. One could easily appreciate how the thematic material wound its way through different instrumental lines. This was very much a study in the diversity of sonorities, which managed to establish and sustain its attention for its limited (eight minutes) duration.

One the whole, Yamada prepared much to sustain attention for his debut, leaving me hoping that he will pay SFS another visit in the not-too-distant future.