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concert review: San Francisco Symphony
Jan. 30th, 2025 08:06 pmThe old man, he still has it.
SFS Conductor Laureate Herbert Blomstedt, an unbelievable 97, needed assistance to hobble his way to the podium, but once he sat down (of course he sat), the music flowed with undiminished freshness.
We had two standard repertoire symphonies, an ordinary Blomstedt program. The point was to hear what he could do with them.
Schubert’s Fifth, one of his early Mozartean symphonies, had heft as well as beauty, but the real revelation was Brahms’ First. Blomstedt and the orchestra worked overtime on putting life and color into this often featureless slab. The first movement was thrilling. Emphasizing the structural joins in the music, Blomstedt threw himself into building up the energy of each individual section. He countered drabness with a variety of colors, featuring an amazing series in the development of strings and winds throwing phrases in exchange at each other.
The quieter middle movements featured careful emphasis on phrasing, with the Andante showing a melting beauty combined with drama in a manner reminiscent of the slow movement of Beethoven’s Fifth.
The finale did not thrill as the opening had. In the past, undramatic finales were a flaw of Blomstedt’s, but this was deliberate - and successful. Instead of thrilling, it was expansive - in a dignified way, without grandiosity. The trombone chorale, for instance, was slow and quiet, a perfect unpretentious lead in to the main theme, played plain and humbly without pomposity.
SFS Conductor Laureate Herbert Blomstedt, an unbelievable 97, needed assistance to hobble his way to the podium, but once he sat down (of course he sat), the music flowed with undiminished freshness.
We had two standard repertoire symphonies, an ordinary Blomstedt program. The point was to hear what he could do with them.
Schubert’s Fifth, one of his early Mozartean symphonies, had heft as well as beauty, but the real revelation was Brahms’ First. Blomstedt and the orchestra worked overtime on putting life and color into this often featureless slab. The first movement was thrilling. Emphasizing the structural joins in the music, Blomstedt threw himself into building up the energy of each individual section. He countered drabness with a variety of colors, featuring an amazing series in the development of strings and winds throwing phrases in exchange at each other.
The quieter middle movements featured careful emphasis on phrasing, with the Andante showing a melting beauty combined with drama in a manner reminiscent of the slow movement of Beethoven’s Fifth.
The finale did not thrill as the opening had. In the past, undramatic finales were a flaw of Blomstedt’s, but this was deliberate - and successful. Instead of thrilling, it was expansive - in a dignified way, without grandiosity. The trombone chorale, for instance, was slow and quiet, a perfect unpretentious lead in to the main theme, played plain and humbly without pomposity.
