This season, the San Francisco Symphony and music director Michael Tilson Thomas came to Cleveland for three days featuring three-and-a-half concerts while next season, the Cleveland Orchestra with Franz Welser-Möst will return the favor. It's a terrific notion on every level: the musicians have time to relax a bit, see some of our city, meet up with far-flung family and friends, while the natives get to hear familiar (and some not-so-familiar) music as interpreted by another musical entity.
In addition to these concerts, Mr. Tilson Thomas ventured down the street to the Cleveland Institute of Music for a rehearsal of the CIM Orchestra, and also spent some time at Severance Hall for a rehearsal with the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, which, in fact, owes its very existence to San Francisco. (Jahja Ling, former resident conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, came to us from San Francisco, where he had founded the first such youth orchestra.)
During the two programs presented (Friday and Saturday night had the same repertoire) we heard music both familiar and non-familiar, plus one that might possibly have been familiar, but in another guise. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to select a favorite from the five works presented. Mr. Tilson Thomas obviously cherishes tradition, but is not afraid to shake it up a bit, either.
Thursday evening's concert had three works; one new, one not-so-new, and one older, very familiar symphonic favorite. Friday and Saturday were also two slightly older works. It's amazing to think, that of the five pieces performed, only one dates from before 1900! In addition to commissioning new work, Mr. Tilson Thomas and his orchestra also commission new versions of existing works, which accounts for the first piece performed on Thursday evening.
En blanc et noir (In Black and White) was originally written for two pianos by Claude Debussy shortly before his death in 1918. This new version for large orchestra was commissioned of Robin Holloway, who lives and teaches at Cambridge University in England. The first performances had been in the previous week's show in San Francisco. Highly influenced by World War I, the middle movement commemorates a young man killed in the war, while the final one celebrates the arrival of peace after the brutal warfare. If there is any justice in the musical world, this "new" work should readily become part of every orchestra's play list. Especially those orchestras that have such a lush, rich-sounding string section as that of the San Francisco Orchestra!
The American composer John Adams is extremely popular, and for good reason. His music is open and accessible, even when sometimes based on flights of fancy. Thursday evening, we heard a fairly recent work-My Father Knew Charles Ives - dedicated to Mr. Tilson Thomas, and also commissioned by his orchestra. The charming, if untrue title is not as frivolous as it may seem. Both men were staunch New Englanders sharing many traditions, among them a love for music. It is an homage to Charles Ives, and that composer's popular Three Places in New England. John Adams' slightly different three places are Concord (Adams' is in New Hampshire, while Ives' was in Massachusetts), The Lake, and The Mountain. Concord is full of small town noise; a parade, military music, a bit of Beethoven. Some of it is close at hand, some is farther away. Some is slightly atonal, some is not. Whatever, wherever, it is both Ivesian and Adamsonian, and overall, very impressionistic. The Lake must, of necessity, be a rather large one to produce so many varying sounds of foghorns and ship's bells, and a jazz band playing at a dance hall on the opposite shore. It was wonderfully evocative of lake sounds, complete to the water dripping off the dock back into the lake itself; one could almost hear and feel the fog! The Mountain was more Adamsy than the other movements, with his traditional propulsive notes underneath the overlying melody.
After intermission we were treated to a rousing rendition of one of the more colorful works in the orchestral literature. Scheherazade, the musical version of the thousand-and-one-nights, by the Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was completed in 1888. Under the skillful fingers of the San Francisco musicians, it sounded as fresh and vibrant as one could wish. In many ways, it is almost a combination of violin concerto and concerto for orchestra, or at least principal players. In this suite of four tales, The Sea and Sinbad's Ship; The Story of the Kalendar Prince; The Young Prince and the Young Princess; and the longer final Festival at Bagdad--The Sea--The ship goes to pieces on a Rock Surmounted by a Bronze Warrior and Conclusion, one after the other of the principals and their sections are showcased. The Sultan is portrayed by the brass: blustery, loud, and determined.
Scheherazade, on the other hand, is a gorgeously lyrical violin. Entrancing, seductive, capricious, hesitant, impulsive, mystical, romantic-Scheherazade, in the capable hands of Concertmaster Alexander Barandtschik, came to life in all these diverse ways. It was a truly bravura performance. By the completion of the piece, the Sultan was certainly much more mellow and agreeable sounding than he'd been at the beginning. Loud bravos ensued immediately at the conclusion of the piece, and when Mr. Tilson Thomas asked Mr. Barandtschik to take a special bow, the audience stood right along with the deserving soloist. After several curtain calls, the audience was rewarded with a rousing rendition of the famous March from The Love for Three Oranges by Prokofiev. Older patrons might remember this as the theme from the 1940s radio show This is your FBI.
Mr. Tilson Thomas studied with Leonard Bernstein and there are frequently gestures reminiscent of the teacher, however, they are without the emotional extravagance of Mr. Bernstein. The musicians seemed alert to his every gesture, and were entirely responsive. I was not alone in finding it all very enjoyable.
The Friday and Saturday night concerts were an entirely different realization of musical experience. The young violinist, Gil Shaham, performed the Violin Concerto of Alban Berg, one of the more difficult-yet certainly beautiful works-for his instrument. His instrument, by the way, is the 300+year-old Stradivarius, known as the 'Countess Polignac' violin. The music begins and ends in a light, airy, almost ethereal mode, very appropriate for depicting a young girl. Berg wrote this concerto in tribute to Manon (the daughter of Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel) who had just died at the age of eighteen. The middle portions relay the anger and torment at her death before the lovely chorale, performed by the winds in a seldom-heard degree of transparency which brought the work to an end. All in all, it was a breath-taking performance that ended with everyone involved- soloist, conductor, orchestra and audience-applauding all the others.
Mr. Shaham is a very expressionistic performer-as observed by the rather large space accorded him on the stage between the first desk violins and the conductor's podium. The body language expended by both soloist and conductor was most impressive, but so was the performance!
If there was a highlight to these concerts, I suspect it might have been the wonderfully zaftig rendition of the Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor by Gustav Mahler. It is clearly evident that Mr. Tilson Thomas has a great affinity with and for the music of Mahler. It is also clear that these musicians have a great affinity for Mr. Tilson Thomas - their responsiveness to their conductor is remarkable. If one could say that anything is 'typically Mahler' then this massive work is indeed typical Mahler. Liberal lashes of introspective angst alternated with huge billows of sound. It is in five movements, although Mahler divided it into three parts, with the middle movement-Scherzo-the longest of the five, standing alone.
Mr. Tilson Thomas's interpretation was authoritative, majestic and expansive. The brass and winds featured crisp attacks and articulation. The seven horns (including two women!) in the Scherzo were terrific, and when required, played with bells up, provided extra exuberance. The principal strings performed a pizzicato quartet interspersed with solo winds: bassoon, flute, clarinet. When Mahler reverses himself, requiring both soft and slow, he writes a heart-breakingly lovely interlude for strings and harp. The San Franciscans treated it with gentleness and care.
The finale featured sprightly badinage between the principal winds, before the celebratory ending was announced by the brass, heralding not only the end of the symphony, but the end of the concert. It was all perfectly splendid, but in spite of the repeated curtain calls and prolonged applause, there was no encore this time. After all, how could you top Mahler?
The half-concert referred to at the beginning of this article was a mini-chamber version given in Reinberger Chamber Hall before Saturday evening's concert. Two works were featured; one new to most of us and one familiar. The first was Dan Welcher's The Wind Won't Listen, a Fantasy for Bassoon and String Quartet. Performers were bassoonist Steven Dibner (who commissioned the work) and violinists Victor Romasevich and John Chisholm, violist Nanci Severance and cellist Peter Wyrick. This was a charming work that showed off the lyrical qualities of the bassoon, set against the contrasting timbres of a string quartet. The familiar work was the Introduction and Allegro of Maurice Ravel, for harp, flute, clarinet, and string quartet. Harpist Douglas Rioth played his part, with ravishing nuances, from memory. The other talented musicians were flutist Catherine Payne, clarinetist Ben Freimuth, violinists John Chisholm and Cathryn Down, violist Nanci Severance, and cellist Barbara Andres.
Thursday evening's pre-concert talk featured Edwin Outwater, resident conductor of the San Francisco Symphony and music director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, in conversation with Peter Czornyj, artistic administrator for The Cleveland Orchestra. Friday evening, Mr. Czornyj and John Kieser, Director of Operations and Electronic Media discussed the various facets of the San Francisco Symphony concert and recorded performances of Mahler symphonies, now nearly midway through the series. All things considered, this was a wonderful, welcome new experience, one with great expectations for future repetitions. from Cool Cleveland contributor Kelly Ferjutz (:divend:)