SFS: A Disconcerting Evening with Robin Ticciati

Visiting conductor Robin Ticciati (photograph by Benjamin Ealovega, courtesy of SFS)

Conductor Robin Ticciati’s debut with the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) in January of 2023 could not have been more memorable. He coupled a solid account of Gustav Mahler’s fourth symphony in G major in the second half of the program with the SFS premiere of the first violin concerto composed by Jörg Widmann in the first. Last night he returned to Davies Symphony Hall, and the performance could not have been more forgettable.

While he could not previously done a better job of managing the wide dynamic range of Mahler’s symphony, last night’s dynamic range was reduced (with only a few exceptions) to loud and louder. This was particularly evident during the second half of the program, which was devoted entirely to Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Opus 27 (second) symphony in E minor. This provided yet another example of the composer’s fondness for triplet passages. However, it also recalled the anecdote of how the music critic Julius Korngold dismissed the efforts of his composer son Erich Wolfgang Korngold with the injunction, “Don’t bathe!” Particularly in the third (Adagio) movement, Ticciati’s interpretation came across as little more than a bubble bath.

The first half of the program was devoted entirely to Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 58 (fourth) piano concerto in G major. The soloist was Francesco Piemontesi, and conductor and soloist came across as made for each other. More often than not, Piemontesi’s fingers approached the keyboard as if they were jackhammers; but his approach seemed to complement Ticciati’s rhetorical evocations of “scowling Beethoven.” Those that take music history seriously tend to agree that Opus 58 was one of Beethoven’s finest efforts, but Ticciati’s partnership with Piemontesi reduced all those efforts to little more than trivia.

Hopefully, things will pick up again when Elim Chan returns to the Davies podium in about two weeks.