Last night in Davies Symphony Hall, Xian Zhang returned to the podium of the San Francisco Symphony, having made her debut with the ensemble in February of 2018. The scope of her program extended from the last quarter of the nineteenth century to the second quarter of the twentieth. The composers, in turn, were all Eastern European.
Photograph of Zoltán Kodály taken some time in the 1930s by an unknown photographer (public domain, from Wikimedia Commons)
The program began in Hungary with Zoltán Kodály’s 1933 suite, Dances of Galánta. This was followed by the oldest work on the program, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 33, given the title “Variations on a Rococo Theme.” This was scored for cello and orchestra, and the visiting soloist was Pablo Ferrández. The second half of the program was devoted entirely to Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 88, his eighth symphony, composed in the key of G major.
According to my archives, this was Ferrández’ first visit to Davies since he made his debut there in May of 2024. The selection for his debut performance was Edward Elgar’s Opus 85 cello concerto in E minor, a longtime favorite in the Smoliar family household! I described that occasion as “one for the books;” and it was extended by Pablo Casals’ solo arrangement of the Catalan Christmas song “El cant dels ocells” (the song of the birds).
This time around, Ferrández again had an encore for his Tchaikovsky offering, but neither composer nor title were announced. His approach to Tchaikovsky acknowledged that the composer had no shortage of wit in his approach to variations. This was clearly more important to him than any selection of an encore, and it reminded me of just how engaging Opus 33 could be in contrast to the composer’s intense approach to his latter symphonies!
In that context, the Dvořák symphony was decidedly engaging, rather than intense. Ironically, my awareness of this symphony dates back to high school days, when Continental Classroom introduced its Government program with the fanfare that opens that symphony’s final movement. Taken as a whole, the symphony has all the affability that is often associated with G major; and, once the fanfare is out of the way, that last movement unfolds a set of variations with no end of engaging vigor.
That energy first emerged at the beginning of the program with Zoltán Kodály’s Dances of Galánta. Those dances unfold over the course of five movements. The first of the movements has a Lento tempo; and the pace keeps getting faster from one movement to the next, concluding with a wild Allegro vivace. Many readers probably know that both Kodály and Béla Bártok were ethnomusicologists, as well as composers; and Galánta, which is now part of Slovakia, provided a rich lode of Gypsy music. Kodály’s approach to those sources led to a composition which definitely “got the juices flowing” to prepare for the rest of last night’s program.
In that context, over the course of the entire program, Zhang maintained a keen sense of the flow of energy advancing from one composition to the next. Her leadership consistently managed that flow, which would be appreciated by any attentive listener in the audience. Zhang prepared a well-conceived start-to-finish journey; and, at the conclusion of the Dvořák symphony, the audience reception could not have been more enthusiastic. Under her interpretation, this was a performance that had most of the audience leaving the hall with a bit of energy in their respective gaits. I also realized that it has been over a year since I last wrote about Kodály, and I was more than delighted to have Zhang bring him back to my attention.
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