Last night Slovakian conductor Juraj Valčuha returned to the podium of Davies Symphony Hall for his latest visit to the San Francisco Symphony, where he made his debut in May of 2013. His preference has been for Eastern European composers, including Béla Bartók, Antonín Dvořák, Zoltán Kodály, Sergei Prokofiev, and Sergei Rachmaninoff. Those preferences continued last night, beginning with Johannes Brahms’ Opus 77 violin concerto in D major, followed after the intermission by Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 93 (tenth) symphony in E minor.
Violinist Gil Shaham overlooking Central Park in New York (photograph by Chris Lee, from Shaham’s Web site)
The concerto soloist was Gil Shaham, who is no stranger to Davies. According to my records, his last appearance was in February of 2019, when he performed Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 19 (first) violin concerto in D major with Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) on the program. An earlier performance with MTT was in March of 2018. This account of Alban Berg’s violin concerto was later released on an all-Berg SFSmedia compact disc. (However, I should confess to a caveat about that hyperlink: When that recording was released, I cautioned readers that “I do not think that I have yet encountered a recording of Berg’s music that lives up to the experience of listening to the selection in a concert performance.” I wrote that in March of 2021, and I am afraid that things have not changed very much since then! Nevertheless, on a more positive note, the CD of the performance by Louis Krasner, for whom the concerto was composed, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra led by Anton Webern is still available through an Amazon.com Web page!)
In other words, last night may very well have been my “first contact” with Shaham at his most traditional. His appearance on the stage presented an attentiveness to not only the conductor but also Concertmaster Alexander Barantschik, suggesting that he both appreciated and valued the idea of music as a fundamental partnership. As a result, I came away the experience of listening to music as familiar as the Brahms concerto was not only at its most engaging but also nuanced in ways that I had not previously considered.
As might be expected, Shaham returned to play a solo encore. This turned out to be a timely reflection on the recent pandemic entitled “Isolation Rag.” The composer was Scott Wheeler, who co-founded the Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble with Rodney Lister and Ezra Sims, both of whom I remember from my student days at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This was the perfect “follow-up” to the high spirits of the final movement of Brahms’ Opus 77.
The Shostakovich symphony, on the other hand, was a sharp contrast from those high spirits. Opus 93 was composed in 1953 after the death of Joseph Stalin. Those familiar with the composer’s history would probably recognize, in the opening Moderato movement, a certain restlessness as if Shostakovich was still haunted by Stalin’s ghost. The movement is a lengthy one, suggesting that the composer was struggling to exorcise those demons of the past. Fortunately, the symphony, as a whole, emerges from darkness to light. Finally, in the third movement (not explicitly identified as a scherzo), the “autobiographical” D-S-C-H motive comes into play with a vengeance; and some perky clarinet riffs lead the final Allegro movement to an upbeat conclusion.
Valčuha’s command of the performance could not have been better. He knew how to make every gesture matter, and it seemed as if every member of the ensemble knew how to respond. This was definitely a performance to remember, and it is worth reminding readers that two more performances remain, tonight at 7:30 p.m. and tomorrow afternoon at 2 p.m.!
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