San Francisco Symphony plays Berio, Thom
On Thursday evening, January 6, 2005, I attended the San Francisco Symphony's performance at Davies Symphony Hall. The program consisted of three 20th and 21st century compositions (a rare thing in the world of American orchestral programming): 13 excerpts from Berio's Duets for Two Violins, Michael Tilson Thomas' Island Music, and Janacek's Glagolitic Mass.
The highlight of the program was by far the Berio which opened the concert. Performed by 12 violinists from the SFS paired with 12 members of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, the duets (written between 1979 and 1983) are superb examples of Berio's tamer side. Written as both teaching tools and concert works, the duets are composed in a variety of styles ranging from Viennese waltzes to etudes showcasing extended performance techniques. The duets were extremely well played by the 12 pairs of violinists, and in many cases the Youth Orchestra members played just as well as their older counterparts. The o-nly pair to truly standout was the combination of SFSYO concertmaster Hannah P. Tarley and SFS concertmaster Alexander Barantschik o-n duet #11, titled "LORIN."
The next work o-n the program was Island Music, a percussion sextet by SFS Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas. Composed in 2003 and premiered by members of Miami's New World Symphony, Island Music is based o-n the gamelan music of Indonesia which has also inspired works by 20th century masters John Cage and Lou Harrison. I have never really liked Tilson Thomas' compositions, and unfortunately this work was no exception. While the work was soundly constructed and superbly showcased the talents of the six percussionists involved, I still found the piece to be lacking the interest and excitement which make works by Cage and Harrison so great. Island Music's primary flaw seemed to be it's sheer size - more than 30 minutes. The work is written in four connected movements, which all seemed to be very similar. o-n a smaller scale the work would have been very interesting and in good proportion to the amount of material contained in in. In its current size the piece simply becomes somewhat tedious. Perhaps I will enjoy the piece more next time I hear it, but I was not convinced by this particular performance.
After an extended intermission came the main work of the program, Leos Janacek's Glagolitic Mass of 1926. Scored for 4 soloists, chorus, organ, and a large orchestra, the mass was o-ne of Janacek's last compositions, completed just two years before his death. Before I continue with this review, I should say that I don't like Janacek's orchestral music very much. I find it to be overly-bubbly and to lack the emotional depth that is found in Janacek's operas. That being said, the rest of this review will focus o-n the performance. While there were moments of superb playing and singing, and plenty of musicality, I found this to be a dissapointing performance by this orchestra. The playing was not as refined as it normaly is, especially o-n issues of intonation and ensemble, and even the normally brilliant Symphony Chorus was not as clean and clear as usual. The soloists were another dissapointment. Soprano Measha Brueggergosman made an excellent Symphony debut, but tended to scream out her solo lines in a way which didn't seem appropriate for this music. Tenor Sergej Larin was under-powered and unconvincing in his many solo parts. He was also completely burried by the chorus in his first entrance. Mezzo Jill Grove and bass Tigran Martirossian were both excellent in their small solo contributions, but did not have enough to do to ballance out the other two soloists. John Walker's organ solos were excellently delivered, although there were some ensemble problems when he was required to play with the orchestra. Problems also arose when the orchestra simply could not match the power of the organ between the sevent and eigth movements.
This program promised to be a very interesting selection of three very different compositions, and it is for that reason that it was all the more dissapointing. The idea of two pieces of chamber music o-n the first half of a symphony program is a good o-ne and should certainly be tried again, but in the future it must be carried out with more attention to detail.
The primary reason for this review is to set the record straight o-n this program. The reivew by Joshua Kosman in the San Francisco Chronicle, which allegedly was also written about the same Thursday night performance I attended, makes me seriously doubt his credibility. The huge discrepancies between what he wrote and what I heard are enough to make me wonder if we are even talking about the same performance, or if he is perhaps o-n the payroll of the Symphony's advertising department. Mr. Kosman's review can be found at the link below.
Added: Sunday, January 09, 2005
Reviewer: Nathan Lofton
Score: 
Related Link: Joshua Kosman's review can be found here.
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