concert review: San Francisco Symphony

[calimac]

The theme of this year's spring festival is: interweave the works of two composers, Franz Schubert (early 19th century Viennese Romantic) and Alban Berg (early 20th century Viennese Romantic), and see if they stick. This concert was the second and most miscellaneous of four programs on the subject. It didn't do well by either composer.

MTT, whose ear hears differently from most of his audience, believes that Schubert and Berg have more in common than Viennese romanticism. They had a similar approach to conveying emotion in their music, he offered vaguely. Possibly so, but that's not enough to build a relationship on. Schubert's tentative early Romanticism, exploring new depths to be found in Classical forms, is quite unlike Berg's decadent post-Romanticism, the gaseous flares of a dying red giant.

I don't wish to criticize Berg entirely. There are works of his, such as the Lyric Suite, that I've heard with appreciation if not exactly enjoyment. And his outpourings convey genuine emotion, unlike the patent artificiality of MTT's favorite, G. Mahler. But most of Berg's chromatic and serialist music sounds over-ripe to the point of being rancid, like a piece of fruit you hold gingerly by two fingers as far from your nose as possible.

This was especially evident in the major work of the evening, the suite from Berg's luridly Expressionist opera Lulu (not to be confused with his other luridly Expressionist opera, Wozzeck). Nor could much more be said for the brief but painful Altenberg Lieder or the Piano Sonata. Mind you, they were performed well. Yefim Bronfman gave unexpected delicacy to the Sonata. And when soprano Laura Aikin was required to scream in the Lulu Suite, she screamed.

The Schubert selection was odd. Apart from one Lied, apparently chosen because it adds a clarinet to the usual piano accompaniment, the works were all Rondos - two for piano four-hands, and one in the form of a short violin concerto. (You probably didn't know that Schubert wrote a violin concerto. Julia Fischer handled the solo part with great smoothness.) These are all Gebrauchsmusik, pleasant pieces for casual performance, only moderately charming and without any heft. When the ritornello becomes irritating, you know a rondo has gone wrong. It's not Schubert's best side, and it's also the part of him that's the least emotionally expressive, and the least like Berg.

So what the heck? This was an educational experience, but it's the kind of concert where I cheer lustily at the end because I'm relieved that it's finally over.

Comments

[divertimento.livejournal.com]

When in comes to Rondos, I long wondered at the point of them--far too often that first ritornello theme comes back a few too many times. A few years ago, when I was playing piano for a series of workshops on dancing early 19th century quadrilles, it struck me that the musical structure for every quadrille movement was like a Rondo (for example, ABACABACABACABACA). I wondered whether the appeal of listening to the repetitive pattern in Rondos during that period was tied to happy associations with dancing that used music with the same pattern.

[divertimento.livejournal.com]

That Schubert Lied with added clarinet is a piece that a soprano, who hadn't worked on the piece before, suggested we perform at a church service. With a title that included "shepherd" and "rock", it must be religious, right?