concert review: San Francisco Symphony

Blomstedt week 2, and this venerable conductor (he's now 90) who gets in his retirement to specialize in the red-meat repertoire chose an utterly meaty program of Mozart's big G-minor symphony, K. 550, and Beethoven's Eroica.

No, it's not boring or overdone. These works are supreme accomplishments of the two greatest composers ever to work in orchestral music, and since music is a performing art that only lives if it's played, they need no excuses. Nor need a performance be revelatory so long as it's incisive, which these were particularly in the finales, traditionally Blomstedt's weak point, so good on him and the orchestra there.

An article in the program book bemoans the fact that Beethoven's music sounds familiar and expected to us. It was intended as shocking, and heard by its contemporaries as such. I don't worry too much about that. Beethoven well played is abrupt and dramatic enough when he intends to be as to convey the point.

And I haven't forgotten my own first encounter. When I first placed an LP of his Fifth Symphony on the turntable at the age of 12, my knowledge of his music was nil. I'd never heard any. All I knew of his symphonies was that there were nine of them and that number five went "da-da-da-dum." It was curiosity as to what else it did that led me to try it out.

It took some courage to do so. I'd been listening to light classics, but the term "symphony" intimidated me. I was almost afraid to listen to one. Would I be able to make any sense of it at all?

Actually it was love as soon as the needle hit the disk. I was awed and transfixed at the massive structure Beethoven built out of his four-note phrase, a form of musical construction I'd had no hint existed, and I was an instant convert: the heavy classics were for me. As the LP of the Fifth came from a box set, within weeks I was familiar with all nine and ready to move on to Haydn, Mozart, Brahms, and all the rest.

Returning to last night's program, I'd note also that Blomstedt took both slow movements unusually fast, at least in the context of the relatively moderate tempo speeds he used for the fast movements.

This concert was not in my series, so I wound up sitting, though in pretty much the same relative position as my regular seat, on the other side of the hall. To my surprise the music sounded different there: more compressed, condensed, and seeming to emanate from a single point down below, as a result of which it sounded almost monophonic. Maybe that explains why some listeners dislike the side balconies so.

addendum to San Francisco Symphony

1) I noticed that several sections were being led by their second-chair players. The principals were off this week. That didn't prevent first-class playing. This orchestra has quality in depth.

2) The article on Beethoven in the program book was very short. In fact, this season all the program notes have been getting short. They already, a few years ago, introduced one-paragraph precis versions of the notes for those who didn't care to read the full essays; now they're not even giving you the option. All you can do is choose between short and shorter.

3) My travel habits to the City are changing drastically. The extra service charge that BART has slapped onto dedicated BART tickets is probably what convinced me to buy a Clipper card, which is what BART is trying to persuade its customers to do instead. The Clipper is the local multi-transit system electronic fare card, equivalent to London's Oyster card. I'd never bought one before, both because I don't take transit often, and because the instructions for using the Clipper were so bewildering. However, before buying it I phoned them up and got some helpful answers.

It turns out that the fuss involved in buying BART tickets for each journey (which I always purchased with cash, and never for large quantities, partly because the paper tickets are fragile) was one of the reasons I often drove to concerts in the City instead. Since buying the Clipper I've been to three concerts, and found myself taking BART to each one. Further, not having to buy a separate fare on Muni, the City's bus-and-streetcar system, has encouraged me to take that. I take BART to where I want to have dinner, and then take Muni, which can get me closer to Davies or Herbst than BART can.

The catch is leaving, since it's less convenient to take Muni back to BART. I can walk the several blocks to the nearest BART station, but it's a slog. Here's where the Symphony can be of help, because they've contracted with a private jitney bus system to provide post-concert shuttle service from the front of the hall to BART.

Well, in theory. Last week I waited 20 minutes until the concertgoers had entirely dispersed, but the bus never showed up. I'd put it out of my mind in the interim, but this week, on arriving, I went and talked with the Symphony's house manager about the problem. To his credit, though he has no control over the buses, he acknowledged that, since the Symphony contracts with them, it's his responsibility to ensure they run properly. He surprised me by saying this is not the only time the bus didn't show up. He thanked me for providing the specifics of a failure case, and invited me to drop by his office when I come back next week to hear what he'll have learned from talking with the bus company.