Last night San Francisco Symphony (SFS) Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen returned to Davies Symphony Hall with a performance that left many of us feeling sorry that this would be his final season as the ensemble’s leader. The second half of the program was devoted entirely to Igor Stravinsky’s score for the ballet “The Rite of Spring” (“Le Sacre du printemps”), which, according to my records, he had previously performed almost exactly three years ago. I have been hooked on this music since my secondary school days when it was one of my earliest score purchases. The fact is, however, that there is so much in that score that even the most attentive listener can come back after many past encounters and still find new discoveries.
As was the case during Salonen’s last performance, my eyes were guided by not only memories of previous listening experiences but also his different approaches to leading the full ensemble through the plethora of notes (and comments) that Stravinsky had injected into his score. Since I now know “what happens next” almost entirely by heart, I was free to guide my attention to factors such as how Salonen managed the many erratic rhythms or figuring out which instrumentalists provided some of the most outlandish sonorities. Once again, the performance of this music left me overwhelmed and exhilarated.
Pianist Daniil Trifonov (photograph by Dario Acosta, courtesy of SFS)
This was particularly significant since the first half was so disappointing that I actually toyed with leaving at the intermission! The concerto soloist was Daniil Trifonov performing Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 16 (second) piano concerto in G minor. I first encountered this concerto rather late in life with several different pianists taking variety of different approaches. Ironically, one of those approaches took me to Trifonov’s Silver Age album, on which he performed the concerto with the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev; and the two of them were worth of the epithet “dynamic duo!”
Sadly, that did not apply to Trifonov’s encounter with Salonen last night. It did not take long for the impression to form that Trifonov was using his fingers as sledge hammers. Mind you, Prokofiev was not shy about aggressive rhetoric; but Trifonov cranked that aggression up to eleven! Fortunately, Salonen’s command of the instrumentation provided the attentive listener with at least some compensation for last night’s “keyboard massacre.”
Even more disappointing, however, was the opening selection, “Strange Beasts” by Xavier Muzik. The composer was commissioned by the Emerging Black Composers Project, as well as SFS; and this was its world premiere performance. The music was performed against projections of photographs by the composer of his native Los Angeles (some of which were deliberately displayed upside down). Sadly, there was more of substance to engage the eyes than there was for the ears. The music muddled its way around for about a quarter of an hour, but it felt like forever.
Fortunately (to paraphrase Humphrey Bogart), we’ll always have Stravinsky!
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