concert revew: San Francisco Symphony
Jan. 30th, 2026 05:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacJaap van Zweden, formerly of the NY Phil, conducted SFS's opening gala this year and is returning twice (this is his second of the three), making him and James Gaffigan, who's also conducting three programs, the closest things to a regular conductor that this director-less (and direction-less) orchestra has this season.
This week he was joined by the storied pianist Emanuel Ax for Mozart's Concerto No. 25, K. 503. Ax played lovely little sheens of notes, particularly shining in his delicate renditions of Mozart's curling phrases, and in some striking tone colors in the perkier moments of the finale. The orchestra was a bit more stolid. As with most other C Major orchestral works of this era, this concerto is heavy on the trumpets and the horns. Combine that with the stolidity and you get some rather dull and routine Mozart. But Ax made a good impression. He didn't play an encore, instead grabbing concertmaster Sasha Barantschik by the hand to drag him (and by courtesy the rest of the orchestra) offstage after the fourth curtain call. I've seen conductors make that move before, but never a soloist.
If Mozart was mixed, Bruckner's Seventh Symphony came out pretty well. Conducting Bruckner with skill means focusing on shaping those big paragraphs, and van Zweden had a good handle on that and on inserting the proper punctuation marks. Fairly brisk but not hurried in tempo, the music made coherent sense, though it could sometimes be less than seamless in flow. Van Zweden's only real quirk was a tendency to drop the volume suddenly in order to build it up afterwards. Balance was mostly good, though the brass in full cry would drown everybody else out even if they were all playing. The first two movements of the Seventh have more lush melodies for strings than any other Bruckner symphony, and these came out with full weight that eschewed opulence.
Most of my SFS concerts this season have been pretty packed, but for this one, though the main floor and terraces were full, the balconies were almost empty.
Usually I leave home for an SFS concert about 3.30, but I had a phone call from my doctor scheduled for 4 pm that couldn't be moved. So I was an hour later and the traffic was that much heavier. I'm driving all the way in instead of taking public transit for the last leg these days, parking in the Civic Center underground garage, and I arrived in time to have dinner at my favorite nearby Chinese place, at the cost of missing the pre-concert lecture.
This week he was joined by the storied pianist Emanuel Ax for Mozart's Concerto No. 25, K. 503. Ax played lovely little sheens of notes, particularly shining in his delicate renditions of Mozart's curling phrases, and in some striking tone colors in the perkier moments of the finale. The orchestra was a bit more stolid. As with most other C Major orchestral works of this era, this concerto is heavy on the trumpets and the horns. Combine that with the stolidity and you get some rather dull and routine Mozart. But Ax made a good impression. He didn't play an encore, instead grabbing concertmaster Sasha Barantschik by the hand to drag him (and by courtesy the rest of the orchestra) offstage after the fourth curtain call. I've seen conductors make that move before, but never a soloist.
If Mozart was mixed, Bruckner's Seventh Symphony came out pretty well. Conducting Bruckner with skill means focusing on shaping those big paragraphs, and van Zweden had a good handle on that and on inserting the proper punctuation marks. Fairly brisk but not hurried in tempo, the music made coherent sense, though it could sometimes be less than seamless in flow. Van Zweden's only real quirk was a tendency to drop the volume suddenly in order to build it up afterwards. Balance was mostly good, though the brass in full cry would drown everybody else out even if they were all playing. The first two movements of the Seventh have more lush melodies for strings than any other Bruckner symphony, and these came out with full weight that eschewed opulence.
Most of my SFS concerts this season have been pretty packed, but for this one, though the main floor and terraces were full, the balconies were almost empty.
Usually I leave home for an SFS concert about 3.30, but I had a phone call from my doctor scheduled for 4 pm that couldn't be moved. So I was an hour later and the traffic was that much heavier. I'm driving all the way in instead of taking public transit for the last leg these days, parking in the Civic Center underground garage, and I arrived in time to have dinner at my favorite nearby Chinese place, at the cost of missing the pre-concert lecture.
