Maazel’s Only 21st Century Recording

Composer John Adams (uploaded on January 5, 2008, by Macror from English Wikipedia, from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license)

The last of the CDs of orchestral performances in the Lorin Maazel: The Complete Warner Edition provides the only account of music from the current century. “On the Transmigration of Souls” was composed by John Adams on a commission by the New York Philharmonic and Lincoln Center's Great Performers. The work was intended as a “musical response” to the attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 (now known colloquially as 9/11). It was premiered in Avery Fisher Hall of Lincoln Center by the New York Philharmonic on September 19, 2002; and the CD is based on recordings of the performances that took place between September 19 and September 24.

The music has the richest instrumentation of all of the orchestral compositions in the Warner collection. The instrumental resources require piccolo, three flutes (3rd doubling piccolo), three oboes, two clarinets, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, four trumpets, three trombones, two tubas, timpani, four percussionists, piano, celesta, “quarter-tone piano,” 2 harps, strings, and pre-recorded tape. There is only one vocal soloist, boy soprano Preben Antonsen, who is presumably a member of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, which is joined by the New York Choral Artists.

Those with even a smattering of music history know that, over many centuries, music has been composed as a “response” to the “call” of a historical event. The most familiar of those “responses” is probably Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 49, usually known as the “1812 Overture.” This was composed to celebrate a victory, which is very much the “flip side” of the event marked by “On the Transmigration of Souls.” That said, the Maazel recording was my “first contact” with Adams’ composition, leading me to wonder if I shall ever listen to it in Davies Symphony Hall!

DSO Live-Streams Americana Program

Yesterday evening, my wife and I settled down with dinner to watch the latest YouTube livestream of a performance by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. The title of the program was Bernstein & Appalachian Spring, which accounted for about half of the selections. Most readers probably know that “Appalachian Spring” was composed by Aaron Copland for choreography by Martha Graham, and the “Bernstein” in the title was Leonard Bernstein. These icons of twentieth-century music were flanked on either side by the next generation of composers, beginning with Joan Tower and concluding with John Adams.

Paul Huang as soloist in the performance of Leonard Bernstein’s “Serenade” (screen shot from yesterday’s live-stream)

The conductor for this occasion was Peter Oundjian, and the soloist was violinist Paul Huang. The latter performed the Bernstein selection, “Serenade, after Plato’s ‘Symposium.’” This is often referred to as one of Plato’s dialogues, but it involves exchanges between Socrates and six other speakers, all presenting their personal praises of love. Bernstein divided those speakers across five movements as follows:

1. Phaedrus, Pausanias
2. Aristophanes
3. Eryximachus
4. Agathon
5. Socrates, Alcibiades

Sadly, the video for this performance provided no cues for the individual movements, which pretty much undermined the effort of any listener to negotiate the overall narrative of the music. Huang followed Bernstein with an encore performance of his own solo arrangement of a Taiwanese folk song.

Things were pretty much the same for “Appalachian Spring.” Graham’s choreography stands as a cornerstone for the early pioneer days in American history. The suite that Copland extracted eliminates much of the pioneer narrative, dwelling more on refreshing aspects of spring itself. That said, like the ballet, it concludes with a musical elaboration of the hymn “Simple Gifts;” and, in the suite, that music is anything but simple! Nevertheless, the music is familiar to many listeners; and Oundjian’s interpretation could not have been more engaging.

The program was framed by two contemporary composers, beginning with a suite that Joan Tower extracted from her “Concerto for Orchestra.” This was one of those energetic scores that attends to every instrument in the ensemble. Unfortunately, the camera work could not keep up with Tower’s pace; and I found that I was much better off attending to listening while ignoring the viewing. Adams kept up with that pace in one of his more recent compositions: “Frenzy: a short symphony.” Personally, I wish it had been shorter!

SFS: 2026 All San Francisco Concert

Many readers probably know by now that the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) All San Francisco Concert provides a subsidized price for Bay Area nonprofit, social services, and grassroots organizations. This amounts to a “thank you” to the city and those citizens without which achievements, such as the construction of Davies Symphony Hall, would not have been possible. Put another way, this is an opportunity where music can tell the city to put politics aside for a couple of hours. As a reviewer, I have to say that I relish this gesture, because it always seems that the audience is genuinely attentive, making for an atmosphere far more conducive than the annual gala occasion!

That said, last night’s program had the same “framework” as the Thursday gala concert. Once again, the “overture” was John Adams’ “The Chairman Dances;” and the concluding “symphony” was Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s five-movement Opus 34, “Capriccio espagnol.” However, the “meat” in this “sandwich” was far more adventurous than yet another performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 64, his violin concerto in E minor, however engaging Hilary Hahn may have been at the gala. The intermission was followed by Gabriela Lena Frank’s mini-suite, Three Latin American Dances. While this was adventurous music, even more adventurous was the performance of a bassoon concerto concluding the first half of the program. The concerto was composed by Carl Maria von Weber in 1811, and the soloist was SFS Principal Bassoon Joshua Elmore.

I must confess to a soft spot for Weber, thanks to the music he composed for clarinet, which I came to know during my secondary school years. Elmore’s command of the concerto could not have been better, Of the four works on the program, this was the one that kept me on the edge of my seat from beginning to end! While much of the rhetoric was playful, the overall journey was as informative as it was adventurous. These days Weber is better known for his operas, but his instrumental compositions deserve more attention than they generally receive.

Where Frank is concerned, I have been writing about her since my Examiner days in 2012. That was when I was spending much of my time at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, but I also remember encountering her work through Old First Concerts. This year she finally won the Pulitzer Prize for Music, and she definitely deserved it! As might be expected, her suite was much appreciated by the percussion section; and, from my vantage point, I could enjoy the visual experience as much as the musical one.

Conductor Giancarlo Guerrero (from the SFS Web page for last night’s concert)

Revisiting the “framework” was just as engaging. Where Adams is concerned, one is always discovering coy details that had previously been overlooked. At the other end of the program, “Capriccio espagnol” was just plain fun. Once again, Giancarlo Guerrero was conducting; and his enthusiasm had not waned since his gala performance. This is music that dates all the way back to my childhood, but I never seem to tire of it!

San Francisco Symphony Gala Concert

Yesterday evening saw the first “official” concert performance in the new season of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). (This was preceded by the concert led by David Afkham one week earlier.) The program was a somewhat abbreviated one, since, as many readers know, the opening night gala involves many more events than the concert itself. However, if the performance was a bit short on duration, conductor Giancarlo Guerrero made sure it was a memorable one.

 

Hilary Hahn as violin soloist for the performance of Mendelssohn’s Opus 64 violin concerto with Concertmaster Alexander Barantschik on the left and, on the right, Giancarlo Guerero conducting from the podium (photograph by Drew Alitzer Photography, courtesy of SFS)

In spite of the brevity, he still prepared a program with the overture-concerto-symphony framework. The second of these selections was, indeed, a concerto and a particularly familiar one at that. Hilary Hahn was the soloist in the performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 64, his violin concerto in E minor. The “overture” was “The Chairman Dances,” described by composer John Adams as an “out-take” from his opera Nixon in China. The concluding “symphony” was Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s five-movement Opus 34, “Capriccio espagnol.”

Whatever the festivities of the evening may have been, Guerrero definitely prepared a program for the attentive listener. The same could be said for soloist Hahn, who made her SFS debut when she was a Shenson Young Artist in October of 1999 and was last seen in Davies Symphony Hall when she performed Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 61 violin concerto in D major under the baton of then Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen. Her approach to Mendelssohn was straightforward but expressive, and the audience could not have been more enthusiastic. She took that enthusiasm as an invitation for an encore. While it was not announced, I am almost certain that it was the concluding Gigue movement from Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1006.1, the third of his solo violin partitas, composed in the key of E major.

I have discovered that, each time I return to an Adams performance, I discover something new. That was definitely the case with “The Chairman Dances;” and the discovery was a bit more unexpected than usual. It turned out that, roughly in the middle of the composition, Adams decided to have the timpani play in unison with the tuba (not the sort of duo one might expect). I have always appreciated Adams most for his wit, and he probably had a chuckle of his own when he penned these measures into his manuscript!

In the final selection I must confess that, for all of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Russian spirit,” the “Spanish rhetoric” in his Opus 34 could not have been more convincing. Mind you, a Spanish composer might have gone for a bit more transparency in the instrumentation; but the attentive listener is quickly drawn into a drive with which the movements flow from one to the next. Guerrero knew exactly how to capture this spirit, and the audience could not have been more enthusiastic with the results. Personally, I have to wonder if the composer himself had a bit of fun as the movements from this “mini-suite” flowed from the ink of his pen!

As far as the audience was concerned, that enthusiasm probably contributed to working up an appetite for what would follow!

SFS Opening Gala to Feature Hilary Hahn

Violinist Hilary Hahn (from the SFS Web page for this event)

Having accounted for the two “pre-Gala” concerts taking place in Davies Symphony Hall (the first Orchestral Series performance with Garrick Ohlsson playing Johannes Brahms’ Opus 15, his first piano concerto, and the first Chamber Series program), this site can now turn to the specifics for the music to be performed at the Gala itself. The conductor will be Giancarlo Guerrero, who last visited the podium of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) at the beginning of May of last year. The concerto soloist will be violinist Hilary Hahn, who performed under the baton of then Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen at the end of that same month of May.

The concert itself will begin at 7 p.m. on Thursday, September 24. Hahn’s concerto selection will be Felix Mendelssohn’s violin concerto composed in the key of E minor. The program will begin with “The Chairman Dances,” composed by John Adams, who probably can be declared the leading composer here in the Bay Area. The program will conclude with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s five-movement orchestral suite, his Opus 34 Capriccio espagnol. The evening will then conclude with “After Party Fun,” beginning at 8:30 p.m. This will be a one-hour event with a live DJ and cocktails available at the Orchestra level bar. The event Web page for this concert will, as usual, include a hyperlink for purchasing tickets online. As always, tickets may also be acquired at the Box Office, which is at the entrance to Davies on the south side of Grove Street, between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street.

DSO Live-Streams Russian Program

Once again my wife and I had our dinner while watching the latest live-streamed performance by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO). The title of the program was Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” and Other Tales, but I would have preferred to call the event a “Russian excursion.” Three of the four composers on the program were Russian, each with a different background. In “order of appearance,” they were Dmitri Shostakovich, Igor Stravinsky, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The first composer on the program was John Adams; but he was represented by “Slonimsky’s Earbox,” named after the Russian-American musicologist who may be best known for the throughly engaging book he wrote entitled Lexicon of Musical Invective.

Cellist Wei Yu performing Shostakovich’s concerto (screen shot from yesterday’s live-stream)

The program was led by the Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu, who had a solid command in approaching all four of the composers. The concerto soloist was DSO Principal Cello Wei Yu, performing Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 107, the first of his two cello concertos, composed in the key of E-flat major. The second half of the program began with Stravinsky’s poéme symphonique, “Le chant du rossignol” (song of the nightingale), followed by selections from Tchaikovsky’s full-length ballet Swan Lake. All of these offerings were richly orchestrated; and, as is usually the case with these telecasts, the camera work guided the viewer through the panoply of diverse instrumental sonorities.

The performance was consistently satisfying from start to finish. Lintu knew just how to capture the brash rhetoric of Adams’ overture. I was fortunate enough to see Slonimsky “in action” with his coy but always perceptive rhetoric. I would like to believe that Adams was just as fortunate, because his music definitely aroused my own personal memories of the musicologist.

Nevertheless, the concerto was the high point of the evening; and the soloist’s command of the extended cadenza was nothing less than jaw-dropping. I would have thought that he had enough by the conclusion of his performance, but he returned to given an encore. This was the opening Prelude movement of Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1012 (sixth) solo cello suite (which always seems to remind me of “The Irish Washerwoman”).

“Le chant du rossignol” is based on one of the more poignant fairy tales by Hans Christian Anderson. Stravinsky composed a full-length opera based on this tale, and the tone poem is basically a distillation of the opera. The distilled version is as engaging as it is brief, and I am somewhat disappointed that the music does not receive more attention. (The last time I wrote about it was in September of 2016, when Michael Tilson Thomas conducted a performance by the San Francisco Symphony.) The instrumentation shows Stravinsky at his best, and those qualities were excellently captured by last night’s camera work.

Given that my writing career (so to speak) began in my efforts as a ballet critic, I am still more than familiar with the full score of Swan Lake. It is usually abbreviated down to the music for the second of the four acts for concert purposes. However, Lintu assembled a suite of his own that accounted for all of those acts (but not with any regard for the narrative). He began with the prologue for the second act (because that is the most familiar music); but this was followed by the waltz in the first act. While his selections did not provide much of an account of the narrative, where this performance is concerned, there was no need to do so!

Choices for May 16, 2026

A little over a week ago, I wrote an article about how the concert season would begin to wrap up as of the very beginning of next month. Thus, concert-goers would be faced by having to choose among three performances, all beginning at 7:30 p.m. and taking place in the Civic Center. It turns out that the next round of choices will be taking place in the middle of the month with at least one of them in the Civic Center. I say “at least” because the first event has been announced by Groupmuse, refraining from identifying the venue until tickets have been secured. Having established the context, the events will be as follows:

7 p.m., to be announced by Groupmuse: This will be the next performance by the Sixth Station Trio, last discussed on this site this past February when they gave their third performance in the Old First Concerts series at Old First Presbyterian Church. That entire program was devoted to the music that Joe Hisaishi composed for Hayao Miyazaki’s anime Howl’s Moving Castle. Next month’s program will include only one Hisaishi composition, “Madness,” composed for the anime Porco Russo. This will be followed by three pieces composed for the video game Genshin Impact!. The first of these will be Koji Kondo’s “Great Fairy Fountain,” followed by “Gallant Challenge” and “Rapid as Wildfires,” composed by Yu Peng Chen. The program will begin with Astor Piazzola’s Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteños, a suite of four tango movements often referred to in English as “the four seasons of Buenos Aires.” The members of the trio are still pianist Katelyn Tan, violinist Anju Goto, and cellist Federico Strand Ramirez. [added 4/28, 9:35 a.m.: Groupmuse has now created a Web page for reservations; as of this writing eighteen of 30 spots are still available.]

Album cover of the new E4TT release (from the E4TT Web page for next month’s program)

7:30 p.m., Center for New Music: Ensemble for These Times will conclude its season with a program entitled El Tiempo Latine. This is also the title of the sixth CD to be released by E4TT. The performance will introduce a selection of the works that were recorded. All three core members will be joined by coloratura soprano Chelsea Hollow with Lylia Guion on violin. For those that do not yet know, those core members are soprano Nanette McGuinness, Megan Chartier on cello, and pianist Margaret Halbig. The venue will be at 55 Taylor  Street.

7:30 p.m., Knuth Music Hall, San Francisco State University: The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP) will conclude its 55th season with a program entitled American Reflections: Full Circle. The circle will be closed, so to speak, with a performance of John Adams’ “Son of Chamber Symphony.” The program will also see the world premiere by “Symphony: Color & Line,” composed by Edward Smaldone on an SFCMP commission. The other relatively recent work on the program will be Haruka Fujii’s “Divisions I,

completed in 2024. The program will begin with Nico Muhly’s “Flexible Music” (2003). The second half of the program will include John Zorn’s “Baudelaires,” completed in 2013. The venue will be the Knuth Music Hall on the campus of San Francisco State University at 1600 Holloway Street.

Jaap van Zweden Launches SFS Season

Last night in Davies Symphony Hall, Jaap van Zweden led the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) in its first performance for the 2025–26 season. This was the 46th anniversary of the All San Francisco Concert, which will be followed late this afternoon with Opening Night festivities. While Opening Night is a somewhat elite affair, the All San Francisco Concert is SFS’s was of saying “Thank You” to the citizens of San Francisco as a whole; and those working for Bay Area nonprofit, social services, and grassroots organizations are offered admission for a significantly reduced fee.

Pianist Parker Van Ostrand (from the Local News Matters Web page for last night’s performance)

This year’s program was an engaging variation on the traditional overture-concerto-symphony structure. The concerto soloist was pianist Parker Van Ostrand, performing what may be the most familiar piano concerto in the repertoire, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 23, his first piano concerto in B-flat minor. The overture was firmly rooted in the Bay Area with John Adams’ “Short Ride in a Fast Machine.” The intermission was followed by Ottorino Respighi’s four-movement tone poem, “Pines of Rome.”

“Short Ride” was first performed by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 1986, but Adams is very much a major presence in the Bay Area. When Michael Tilson Thomas was Music Director, a performance in Davies was recorded on September 7, 2011 and subsequently released on an SFS Media CD, coupled with Adams’ “Harmonielehre.” I was glad to see that Amazon.com still has a Web page for this album, since it could not be more representative of Adams’ intimate relationship with SFS. Zweden had no trouble capturing and communicating the spirit of “Short Ride,” and I was glad to see that he will be returning to Davies in both January and February.

The Tchaikovsky concerto is, for many, the one concerto to rule them all. Ostrand is still a student at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, but he is definitely on the path to a future to be reckoned with. Mind you, he approached the opening movement with an energy that was almost Olympian. Nevertheless, he clearly had a command of everything that Tchaikovsky presented in the score. Once he got past the inevitable here-we-go-again rhetoric of the first movement, he began to settle into finding his own path to expressiveness over the course of the remainder of his performance.

Ostrand may be familiar to those with long memories of this site. He was the final solo recitalist in the 2023 San Francisco International Piano Festival. On that occasion his encore was the Alla Turca movement that concludes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 331 sonata in A major. However, what he really played was the “Concert Paraphrase on Mozart’s Turkish March,” composed by Arcadi Volodos (which I first heard performed as a Yuja Wang encore). Last night, for his first appearance with SFS, he decided it was time to play this encore again; and listening to it was as much fun as it was on my “first contact.”

As usual, the Respighi performance pulled out all the stops. That included the two brass quartets situated on either side of the choir loft above the orchestra. “Pines of Rome” also includes a nightingale in its third episode on the Janiculum Hill. Respighi had a phonograph recording prepared for that episode. (I had a high school music teacher, who argued with me that recordings had not yet been invented. He did not know that “Pines of Rome” was composed in 1924!) Respighi died in 1936, meaning that he never experienced the emergence of concrete music as a genre!

SFS: 2025 All San Francisco Concert

Jaap van Zweden, conductor for this year’s All San Francisco Concert

This is the time of year when tickets for the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) All San Francisco Concert, provided at a subsidized price for Bay Area nonprofit, social services, and grassroots organizations, become available to the general public. This year’s program is likely to be familiar to many (if not most) readers. The overture-concerto-symphony program will begin with John Adams’ “Short Ride in a Fast Machine.” This will be followed by one of the best-known piano concertos in the “standard repertoire,” Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 23, his first piano concerto composed in the key of B-flat minor. The soloist will be pianist Parker Van Ostrand. The intermission will be followed by Ottorino Respighi’s tone poem in four movements, “Pines of Rome.” The conductor will be Jaap van Zweden.

The remaining tickets for the general public are limited to the 2nd Tier in Davies Symphony Hall. Very few seats are available, all at the price of $12. Tickets may be purchased online through a Web page, which shows which seats remain. They will also be sold at the Davies Symphony Hall Box Office at 201 Van Ness Avenue, on the southwest corner of Grove Street. Purchases may also be made by calling 415-864-6000. The performance will take place in Davies at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 11.

SFCMP Announces Plans for 55th Season

A little over a week ago, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP) announced plans for its 2025–2026 Concert Season. It has been inspired by the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, and the title of the season will be American Reflections: Hear/Now. American Reflections will be the title of each of the four programs to be presented during this 55th concert season. Once again, the schedule will be a “movable feast” involving the alternation between two different venues. Dates, times, and venues, along with subtitles for each program, will be as follows:

John Adams, who will provide the “bookends” for the new SFCMP concert season (photograph by Deborah O’Grady)

Sunday, November 16, 4 p.m., Brava Theater, Exuberance: This will be the West Coast premiere of “First Work,” completed on a commission this year by Samuel Carl Adams. This will conclude the first half of the program, while the second half will conclude with “Chamber Symphony,” composed by John Adams (Sam’s father) in 1992. The Brava Theater is located in the Mission at 2781 24th Street.

Saturday, January 31, 8 p.m., Taube Atrium Theater, Fire & Lightening: “Mosaic,” composed by Elliott Carter for harp and ensemble, will receive its West Coast premiere. The harp soloist will be Amy Ahn. The venue is located on the top floor of the Veterans Building, which is on the southwest corner of Van Ness Avenue and McAllister Street.

Saturday, April 11, 7:30 p.m., Taube Atrium Theater, Steps Toward Ascent: The featured composer will be Steve Reich with the performance of his “Jacob’s Ladder,” composed in 2023.

Saturday, May 16, 7:30 p.m., Brava Theater, Full Circle: John Adams will return, providing the season with its “bookends.” Appropriately enough, his second offering will be “Son of Chamber Symphony.” This was completed in 2007, about fifteen years after “Chamber Symphony.”

The Web page for this season has already been created. This will provide a much more thorough account, along with options for both individual and season tickets. As in the past, seating will continue to be by general admission.

SFS: Preparing for the Opening Gala

Conductor Jaap van Zweden (photograph by Simon van Boxtel, courtesy of SFS)

Having accounted for the “concert” dates in the Summer with the Symphony programs to be presented by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS), I suspect that at least some readers are beginning to think about the coming season. (Some of them have probably already purchased subscriptions.) The new season will begin “officially” on Friday, September 12, in Davies Symphony Hall. The conductor for this occasion will be Jaap van Zweden. Pianist Yuja Wang, who has been a regular visitor to Davies, will be the soloist in a performance of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 23, his first piano concerto, composed in the key of B-flat minor. The program will begin with “Short Ride in a Fast Machine” by the Bay Area’s own composer, John Adams. The final work on the program will be Ottorino Respighi’s “Pines of Rome.” In other words, this is the sort of program that will, as some would say, crank the volume up to eleven!

Single tickets will not go on sale until this Thursday, June 19, at noon. However, those interested in donating to SFS have the option of sponsoring the full-evening Opening Gala. This will begin in Davies at 5:30 p.m. with Silver Receptions in the Wattis Room and the Loge Lobby. The concert will then be followed with a Gala Dinner in the Zellerbach Rehearsal Hall beginning at 8:30 p.m. Individual sponsorships are available for $2500 ($1853 tax deductible), $5000 ($4353 tax deductible), and $10,000 ($9353 tax deductible). There are also “Table” sponsorships, which accommodate ten guests. Those sponsorships are available for between $15,000 and $100,000. Sponsors will also enjoy the benefit of complementary parking. A Web page has been created with further details and hyperlinks for purchasing the available options.

SFS Commissions and Premieres in 2025–26

Playbill for the Vienna Premiere of Don Giovanni in 1788 (from the Wikipedia Web page, public domain)

Like yesterday’s article about debut performances during the 2025–26 season of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS), the category of “Commissions and Premieres” involves previously accounted for performance dates. Indeed, with the exception of John Adams’ “Short Ride on a Fast Machine,” all of the “Works by Living Composers” fall into this category. That leaves only three other premiere performances, all by works from past centuries. The composers and their respective selections are as follows:

1. Johann Sebastian Bach: Easter Oratorio (BWV 249)
2. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: aria from Don Giovanni (K. 527) sung by Golda Schultz
3. Ralph Vaughan Williams: the overture to the incidental music composed for Aristophanes’ play The Wasps

(On a personal note, I have a particular fondness for the “special effects” at the beginning of the Vaughan Williams overture!)

Conductor Mark Elder Makes his SFS Debut

Conductor Mark Elder (photograph by Groves Artists, courtesy of SFS)

Mark Elder is no stranger for those that have followed the San Francisco Opera for some time. I first encountered him in the fall of 2015, when he had trouble keeping the brass section under control while conducting Richard Wagner’s score for Die Meistersinger con Nürnberg. My only other experience with his performance was in the spring of 2019, when he was the conductor for the Great Performances at the Met broadcast of Camille Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila. Sadly, this was no more satisfying than his approach to Wagner.

Last night in Davies Symphony Hall, Elder made his debut conducting the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). Having more liberty to prepare a repertoire, he put together a program that was decidedly more engaging than either of his previous operatic encounters. The first half of the program accounted for French music from the two extremes of the nineteenth century. The “central” selection was Claude Debussy’s “Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un faune,” which was composed in 1894. This was flanked on either side by overtures by Hector Berlioz. The program began with his overture to Les Franc-juges, described in the program book notes by James M. Keller as his “first operatic failure.” The first half concluded with “Le roi Lear,” a concert overture inspired by William Shakespeare’s King Lear.

Berlioz was never shy when it came to instrumentation, and Elder displayed a solid command of the scores for both of these overtures. Of particular interest was the interplay across the first and second violin sections. This was enhanced through the conductor’s decision to have the two sections face each other, rather than play side-by-side. This afforded the attentive listener better opportunities to appreciate the many details in how Berlioz managed his orchestral textures.

Those textures were equally significant during the second half of the program, most of which accounted for Richard Strauss’ Opus 30 tone poem “Also sprach Zarathustra.” Strauss was heavily interested in the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, which he encountered in the early 1890s. Also sprach Zarathustra was conceived by Nietzsche as a four-part treatise; but it unfolds as a prose narrative, whose plot line (such as it is) provided Strauss with a framework for his tone poem. Each of the tone poem’s episodes reflects on a specific segment of Nietzsche’s text. To be fair, I have to confess that, over the course of my several listening experiences, I could easily apprehend the episodic structure without finding much of a relationship to a narrative thread. Nevertheless, Elder’s conducting could not have been clearer in guiding one through those episodes, regardless of any presence or absence of a plot-line.

He then decided that Strauss’ account of heavy philosophy deserved a lighter “punch line.” As a result, last night’s program concluded with one of John Adams’ most engaging compositions, “Short Ride in a Fast Machine.” This quickly blew away any of the “scholarly cobwebs” that may have been induced by Strauss’ musical reflections on Nietzsche! This music was an SFS favorite back when Michael Tilson Thomas was Music Director. Personally, I was glad to encounter it again.

SFS: “Everything Old is New Again”

The Wheel of Fortune from the Carmina Burana manuscript, which frames the structure of Carl Orff’s cantata (from the Wikipedia page for the Carmina Burana collection of poetry)

Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana was all the rage in my student days. It was first performed at the Frankfurt Opera of June 8, 1937. Its premiere was so successful that Orff instructed his publisher to destroy all of his earlier compositions. It may have facilitated the composer’s denazification process following World War II, since all of the texts dated from the thirteenth century in Medieval Latin, Old French, and Middle-High German. As the  San Francisco Symphony (SFS) program note by René Spencer Sailer (written for the St. Lous Symphony) observed, those texts are “stubbornly secular, often bawdy verses touch[ing] on the corruption of the clergy, the benefits of intoxication, the sorrow of love, the glories of nature, and the pitiless wheel of fortune that determines our destinies.”

Attitudes towards this music have been on a roller-coaster ride since the Sixties, when it began to emerge on long-playing records. For the better part of my mature life, it has been dismissed as little more than trivial, if not downright infantile. However, time tends to assuage arrogance as well as healing wounds; and it would be fair to say that we now live in an age that is not afraid to have fun with both the text and Orff’s raucous instrumental settings.

Last night in Davies Symphony Hall, visiting conductor David Robertson was never shy in having fun with this music. Indeed, that fun was shared by not only the full forces of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) but also the SFS Chorus (directed by Jenny Wong) and the San Francisco Girls Chorus, prepared by Artistic Director Valérie Sainte-Agathe. The vocal soloists were soprano Susanna Phillips, tenor Arnold Livingston Geis, and baritone Will Liverman; but their solo work was quite modest compared to the demands Orff made on the full chorus and subsections of it. While the overall instrumentation was massive, there were also more intimate passages, including a dance episode for the duet of flute and timpani and several engaging solo passages by Concertmaster Jeremy Constant. For me, the high point of the performance came with Geis’ delivery of the swan being roasted for a feast (“Olim lacus colueram”).

As I sat down with my program last night, I anticipated that the high spirits of Carmina Burana would be complemented by the world premiere performance that would precede the intermission. This was John Adams’ piano concerto entitled “After the Fall” and composed on an SFS commission. The soloist was Víkingur Ólafsson, for whom the work was written. My first encounter with Adams was at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, when I attended a program entitled Meet the Minimalists. The final work on that program was “Grand PIanola Music;” and I was hooked from the very beginning to the final cadence. Sadly, those vivid memories may have been to my disadvantage, because “After the Fall” came across as little more than a weak shadow of what Adams had been doing some forty-odd years ago. The music lasted for about half an hour but had pretty much made its point within the first fifteen minutes.

On the other hand, the raucousness of Carmina Burana was much better complemented by the opening selection on the program. This was Charles Ives’ “The Unanswered Question.” The work is scored for only four flutes, one trumpet, and strings. The role of the trumpet is to “pose the question,” which it does with a single brief phrase. Each time we hear the question stated, the flutes try to reply. However, they never provide a satisfactory answer and grow more and more irritated in the rhetoric of their responses. Finally, the trumpet asks the question one last time; and this time there is no attempt at an answer. Robertson could not have done a better job in capturing the serenity of this enigmatic composition. Ives composed this work in 1906. Did Orff come up with an answer thirty years later?

Friction Quartet to Present Second SF Recital

Friction Quartet members Otis Harriel, Mitso Floor, Doug Machiz, and Kevin Rogers

I apologize for this being a last-minute announcement; but, to be fair, I received notification only yesterday! Program details have been finalized for the second program to be performed in San Francisco for the current season by the Friction Quartet. The recital will be curated by Doug Machiz, the quartet’s cellist, who will be performing with violinists Otis Harriel and Kevin Rogers with Mitso Floor on viola. The title of the program will be Collections; and, as I have been informed, it will present “three colorful, creative and monumental collections that defy classification.

The first of these is likely to be familiar to many readers, the Book of Alleged Dances by John Adams. This will be followed by Canções da America, a compilation of sources of South American folk music arranged for string quartet by Clarice Assad. The final selection, Family Group with Aliens, was composed by Piers Hellawell on a Friction commission. This is basically a “nested” suite in which each successive movement is a miniaturized version of the opening movement.

The program will begin at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow, December 12, in the Noe Valley Ministry at 1021 Sanchez Street, just south of 23rd Street; and a Web page has been created for purchasing tickets.

Trifonov Shifts Attention from Europe to Americas

Pianist Daniil Trifonov has been a regular visitor to San Francisco, both as concerto soloist and recitalist, over the course of several years. This coming February, he will return to Davies Symphony Hall as soloist in a performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 18 (second) piano concerto in G minor with the San Francisco Symphony. In addition, this site has tried to keep up with his Deutsche Grammophon recordings, the most recent of which was Bach: The Art of Life, a “family portrait” that juxtaposed works by Johann Sebastian Bach with selections by four of his sons.

Daniil Trifonov on the cover of his latest album (courtesy of Crossover Media)

Trifonov’s latest album takes him across the Atlantic Ocean, so to speak. It is the first of two releases both under the title My American Story. The subtitle for that first release is North, and it offers an impressively diverse account of music composed in the United States. Taken as a whole, it amounts to an engaging account of how music was being made during the twentieth century.

The breadth of that diversity can be oriented around the two concerto selections on the album, each reflecting a different perspective across the two centuries. The first of these is George Gershwin’s “Concerto in F” (originally given the title “New York Concerto”). Following the success of “Rhapsody in Blue,” the conductor Walter Damrosch commissioned Gershwin to compose a full-scale piano concerto for his New York Symphony Orchestra. “Rhapsody in Blue” has been composed for solo piano and jazz band, but it was subsequently prepared for orchestral performance by Ferde Grofé. The concerto, on the other hand, is entirely a product of Gershwin’s own efforts.

A little less than a century later, Mason Bates composed his first piano concerto. It was written for Trifonov and given its first performance in January of 2022. It was co-commissioned by Trifonov and the Philadelphia Orchestra, with whom he played the work’s debut. The recording of that concerto on North was made with that same ensemble led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who has been the ensemble’s music director since 2012.

I feel as if I have been following Bates’ work for almost as long as I have been writing on this site. Unless I am mistaken, that dates back to the spring of 2009, when Michael Tilson Thomas conducted Bates’ “The B-Sides” with the San Francisco Symphony. It took me a while to get used to him (which may be the same for any thoughts he may have had when reading what I wrote about him); but I came away from listening to his concerto with the sense that he had approached it with more security than Gershwin had brought to his “parallel” effort. Indeed, I can confess that my very first impression of Bates leaned towards “enfant terrible;” but the firm and secure hand he brought to composing for both piano and ensemble is a far cry from either of those words!

All the other selections on this first My American Story album are solo performances. I must confess that I was particularly taken with the tracks that involved arrangements of popular tunes by leading pianists from each half of the twentieth century. The earlier of these was one of the most influential musicians (who happened to play piano) of his time, Art Tatum. The second could be said the same for his time, the pianist being Bill Evans. In listening to these tracks, one can easily detect Trifonov’s appreciation of both of those jazz masters. That appreciation also extends to the final track on the album, which is “4’33”,” John Cage’s “silent” composition. On the other hand his approach to the more “serious” composers, such as Aaron Copland, John Adams, and John Corigliano, struck me as more dutiful than engaging; but that is probably just because I am not shy in voicing personal opinions!

A Trinity Alps Chamber Players Groupmuse

Yesterday evening at Monument SF, Ian Scarfe, founder and Director of the Trinity Alps Chamber Music Festival, presented his latest groupmuse concert. He was joined by violinist Sam Weiser and cellist Evan Kahn in a program whose “main event” was the performance of Robert Schumann’s Opus 80 (second) piano trio in F major. This served as the concluding “bookend” of the program, which began with another Schumann selection, three selected movements from the Opus 102 Five Pieces in Folk Style, a duo for cello and piano. Between these two pieces Scarfe gave a solo performance of the first and third movements from Samuel Barber’s Opus 20 Excursions, after which he was joined by Weiser for the first movement (entitled “Relaxed Grooves”) of John Adams 1995 suite Road Movies.

Scarfe provided remarks for each of these selections. Such commentary is often risky business, but Scarfe managed to find that “sweet spot” between saying too little and saying too much. It was clear that he had cultivated a strong personal attachment to each of the selections; but it was just as clear that, for the entire evening, the experience was all about the music taking priority over the musicians.

Both of the Schumann selections were composed during a particularly productive period in his life. (Just look at the difference between the opus numbers.) Where the trio was concerned, this was also a period of retrospective reflection. The first movement of the trio includes a quotation taken from a much earlier song cycle, the Opus 39 Liederkreis, appropriating the theme of the second song, “Intermezzo.”

Schumann composed three piano trios. The first of these, Opus 63 in D minor, was composed in the same year as Opus 80, 1847. The third trio, Opus 110 in G minor, came much later in 1851. Unless I am mistaken, my only previous encounters with any of them took place at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM). (All three of last night’s performers are SFCM alumni.) By the same account, I was glad to have an opportunity to listen to some of Barber’s piano music, since, these days, encounters with any of his music are few and far between. Adams has fared much better in garnering attention, but it was still a pleasure to experience the playfulness that Scarfe and Weiser brought to his music.

The entire program took place in a setting that was both casual and intimate, which is exactly what good chamber music listening requires.

SFO Announces 100th Anniversary Concert

1940s photograph of SFO founder Gaetano Merola conducting the SFO Orchestra (from the SFO Archives)

In addition to the three operas that San Francisco Opera (SFO) will present over the course of next month, there will be one final event to celebrate the Centennial Season. The Centennial Celebration concert, which launched the season this past September, will be complemented by a 100th Anniversary Concert, a musical account of SFO’s first century. The program will feature fifteen vocal soloists, the SFO Orchestra and Chorus, and three conductors.

Beginning with the conductors, Caroline H. Hume Music Director Eun Sun Kim will share the podium with former Music Director Donald Runnicles, and former Principal Guest Conductor Patrick Summers. The vocal soloists will be sopranos Karita Mattila, Ailyn Pérez, Patricia Racette, Nina Stemme, Heidi Stober, and Adela Zaharia, mezzo-sopranos Susan Graham and Daniela Mack, tenors Lawrence Brownlee, Michael Fabiano, Brandon Jovanovich, and Russell Thomas, baritones Lucas Meachem and Brian Mulligan, and bass-baritone Christian Van Horn. The current plan for the program (which is subject to change) is as follows:

• Prelude from Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Richard Wagner); San Francisco Opera Orchestra; Eun Sun Kim, conductor
• “Amour viens rendre à mon âme” from Orphée et Eurydice (Christoph Willibald Gluck); Daniela Mack; Donald Runnicles, conductor
• “Pur ti miro” from L’Incoronazione di Poppea (Claudio Monteverdi); Heidi Stober and Susan Graham; Patrick Summers, conductor
• “Odi il voto” from Ernani (Giuseppe Verdi); Russell Thomas; San Francisco Opera Chorus; Eun Sun Kim, conductor
• “Pierrot’s Tanzlied” from Die tote Stadt (Erich Wolfgang Korngold); Lucas Meachem; Donald Runnicles, conductor
• “Embroidery” aria from Peter Grimes (Benjamin Britten); Heidi Stober; Donald Runnicles, conductor
• “Vicino a te” from Andrea Chénier (Umberto Giordano); Michael Fabiano and Ailyn Pérez; Eun Sun Kim, conductor
• “Va, pensiero” from Nabucco (Giuseppe Verdi); San Francisco Opera Chorus; Patrick Summers, conductor
• “Ch’ella mi creda” from La Fanciulla del West (Giacomo Puccini); Brandon Jovanovich; Eun Sun Kim, conductor
• Act I finale from Tosca (Giacomo Puccini); Christian Van Horn; San Francisco Opera Chorus; Eun Sun Kim, conductor
• “Entrance of the Guests” from Tannhäuser (Richard Wagner); San Francisco Opera Chorus; Donald Runnicles, conductor
• “Batter my heart” from Doctor Atomic (John Adams); Brian Mulligan; Eun Sun Kim, conductor
• “Co chvila” from Jenůfa (Leoš Janáček); Karita Mattila; Donald Runnicles, conductor
• “Losing my mind” from Follies (Stephen Sondheim); Patricia Racette; Patrick Summers, conductor
• “Ah, je veux vivre” from Roméo et Juliette (Charles Gounod); Adela Zaharia; Eun Sun Kim, conductor
• “Ombra mai fu” from Serse (Xerxes) (George Frideric Handel); Susan Graham; Patrick Summers, conductor
• “Prosti, nebesnoye sozdanye” from Pique Dame (Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky); Brandon Jovanovich; 
• Donald Runnicles, conductor
• “Là ci darem la mano” from Don Giovanni (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart); Heidi Stober and Christian Van Horn; Eun Sun Kim, conductor
• “Cessa di più resistere” from Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Gioachino Rossini); Lawrence Brownlee; San Francisco Opera Chorus; Patrick Summers, conductor
• Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde (Richard Wagner); Nina Stemme; Donald Runnicles, conductor
• “Ave Signor” from Mefistofele (Arrigo Boito); San Francisco Opera Chorus; Eun Sun Kim, conductor

The entire program should last approximately three hours with one intermission.

This concert will be given only one performance, beginning at 6 p.m. on Friday, June 16. Ticket prices range from $30 to $350; and, depending on location, there is a facility fee of either $2 or $3 per ticket. All tickets may be purchased in the outer lobby of the War Memorial Opera House at 301 Van Ness Avenue or by calling the Box Office at 415-864-3330. Box Office hours are 10 a.m.–5 p.m. on Monday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday through Saturday. In addition, there will be a livestream (no on-demand access) on the entire program; the charge will be $27.50. Web pages are available both for tickets to the Opera House and for the livestream. Finally, those going to the Opera House will have the option of purchasing dinner packages (which will be sold separately from the tickets for the performance). A single Web page has been created with hyperlinks for the different dinner options. Tickets may also again be purchased through the Box Office.

A Question About John Adams New Opera

What was the Prelude that begins Richard Wagner's Das Rheingold doing at the start of the Battle of Actium? 

A Second Look at John Adams’ “Grand Opera”

Yesterday afternoon my wife and I returned to the War Memorial Opera House for a second encounter with John Adams’ latest opera, Antony and Cleopatra, this time from the Box seats we have held for over fifteen years of San Francisco Opera (SFO) subscriptions. Readers may recall that, after my first encounter, I questioned whether Adams’ music had done justice to William Shakespeare’s command of iambic pentameter. In discussing our first encounter with my wife, I wondered whether any music could do justice to iambic pentameter without devolving into banal singsong.

Yesterday I recalled that not only iambic pentameter but also Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter could be given a fair shake in at least one musical genre. When I was in high school, I knew a fellow student that would sing a tune called “Shakespeare Blues.” The idea was that he would fit familiar Shakespeare couplets into a twelve-bar blues pattern, and the result worked like a charm. Needless to say, twelve-bar blues never finds its way into Adams Antony and Cleopatra score!

More importantly, however, yesterday’s seating gave me a much better perspective on Adams’ approach to instrumentation. I realized that the ensemble was far larger than I could take in from my angle of viewing. However, as had been the case a little less than a year ago in the SFO production of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 72 Fidelio, Music Director Eun Sun Kim clearly put a good deal of thought into how all of those instrumental resources should be configured.

From the audience point of view, almost the entire string section was grouped on the left. The right was then divided into parallel ranks with the winds closest to the podium and the brass behind the winds. Behind the brass one encountered a generous panoply of percussion instruments. Finally, the center-rear area was shared by Chester Englander on cimbalom and Laura Poe on celeste. From the listener’s point of view, Kim’s configuration afforded greater clarity for the winds and brass, which tended to develop the thematic lines with textured accompaniment from the string passages. Needless to say, Kim knew exactly how to balance these resources against the many different vocal dispositions on stage, including those of the SFO Regular Chorus, directed by John Keene.

While my experience of the orchestra was enhanced from by vantage point, my impressions of both the libretto and the staging tended to decline with my second encounter. Most important is that the sense of “experienced time” tended to drag out as the narrative plodded its way to the deaths of the two protagonists. To some extent, these deaths are overshadowed by what is probably the most chilling episode in the entire opera. This is a rousing speech that Octavian (tenor Paul Appleby) delivers to an audience that hangs on his every word. As I had previously observed, this marked the beginning of Octavian’s rise above the other members of the triumvirate, Antony (bass-baritone Gerald Finley) and Lepidus (bass-baritone Philip Skinner); and Director Elkhanah Pulitzer staged this as an object lesson in how fascism is born.

Bitten by the asp, Cleopatra (Amina Edris) faces death in her most regal attire (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

The problem is that this episode was so intense that the subsequent deaths of the two title characters almost seemed inconsequential. Mind you, there is all that confusion about who dies when that turns the narrative into a rather frustrating muddle. However, once Cleopatra (soprano Amina Edris) knows that Antony is really dead, even the most attentive viewer would be forgiven for wishing that she would “get on with it” and let the asp do its thing!