Ax Returns to SFS under van Zweden’s Baton

Last night conductor Jaap van Zweden returned to Davies Symphony Hall to lead the San Francisco Symphony in a program coupling an eighteenth-century concerto with a nineteenth-century symphony. Both works were completed nearing the end of their respective centuries. The program began with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 503 piano concerto in C major, composed in 1786. The soloist for the performance was Emanuel Ax. The second half of the program was devoted entirely to Anton Bruckner’s seventh symphony in E major (WAB 107), composed in 1883 and revised in 1885.

Pianist Emanuel Ax (photograph by Nigel Parry, courtesy of SFS)

C major tended to be Mozart’s key for high spirits, and Ax definitely delivered a spirited account. He last visited Davies in October of 2024 to give a Great Performers Series Concert divided equally between Ludwig van Beethoven and Robert Schumann. Particularly memorable, though, was his duo performance with Itzhak Perlman in Davies in January of 2016, when they gave a delightfully fresh account of Mozart’s K. 296 sonata in C major. Ax was clearly “on the ball” last night, and his engagement with van Zweden was consistently attentive. Nevertheless, for all the many times he returned for bows, it seemed as if his heart was not in the music as it had been in past visits.

Fortunately, van Zweden’s heart was definitely in his approach to Bruckner. Just about any Bruckner composition requires more than a few listening encounters before one can begin to appreciate his efforts. Having experienced that journey myself, I felt as if I could share my own appreciation with van Zweden’s. Mind you, I encounter performances of Bruckner’s music so seldom that I usually need a bit of time to “settle into” his rhetoric at the beginning of any of his compositions. Under van Zweden’s direction, that “settling” did not take very long. Once I could establish the “terrain” of his interpretation, I could appreciate the vast expanse of the composer’s rhetoric; and I found myself leaving Davies with the wistful reflection that I needed to hear more of this music.