concert review: San Francisco Symphony
Oct. 28th, 2009 11:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacThis was a Concert of Choice: not on my series slate, I got the extra ticket because I really wanted to hear the Finnish composer Aulis Sallinen's Symphony No. 1. Sallinen is to my tastes the greatest living symphonist. He's written eight of them to date, of which I have recordings of six, but up until tonight I'd never heard any of his music live. So while B. headed off to work in my car, I ventured up to the City in one borrowed for the day from my mother. (That's the result of a long, sad story which you'll hear soon enough, if you haven't already.)
Sallinen's First dates from as long ago now as 1971, which makes it something of a pioneer work in the Resurgence of Tonality movement. But don't mistake Sallinen for a tuneful, easily assimilated composer. The First is a single movement of short motifs and complex development that takes up a few steps beyond where Sibelius's Seventh left off. Sallinen has a similar, though airier, sound world to Sibelius's, and like his elder compatriot has a great liking for building tension through enormous pedal points.
I have two recordings of the First, so I had something to triangulate it by. Alas, I didn't care much for this performance. It felt stiff, and never penetrated to an understanding of the soul of the music. Had I not known the work, it would have sounded like just another wad of semi-tonal modernism. Many listeners might hear it and promptly forget the composer, which is too bad.
Nor was I thrilled with the performance of Sibelius's Violin Concerto which came after. This whip-snap of a work was dull and meandering, despite valiant playing by the orchestra and Vadim Repin, the soloist.
At this point one looks to the conductor for someone to blame. This was Osmo Vänskä, whose recordings I do not dislike, so I am not sure why, judging from this concert, he seems to have so little feel for the music of his countrymen. Vänskä is music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, so perhaps locals of that area who read this may have heard him at home and have some thoughts.
After intermission came some Beethoven - the Coriolan Overture and Eighth Symphony [latest candidate for "why is it always this work?"] - which fared better. Heavy, stodgy, rather old-fashioned performances, but Beethoven thrives under that, as he does with the sudden, unexpected rhythmic emphases Vänskä is prone to.
I did one good deed: the poster pinned in the elevator announcing that the conductor would sign CDs printed his surname without the umlauts. So when nobody was looking I penciled them in.
I didn't get to the Borderlands mega-signing, though with a little more time available I might have. I did, however, get to the city library where I'd had paged a 1943 bound magazine volume in their collection containing an until-recently-unknown-to-me book review by that splendid Inkling, Hugo Dyson, which I neatly photocopied to add to my collection.
Sallinen's First dates from as long ago now as 1971, which makes it something of a pioneer work in the Resurgence of Tonality movement. But don't mistake Sallinen for a tuneful, easily assimilated composer. The First is a single movement of short motifs and complex development that takes up a few steps beyond where Sibelius's Seventh left off. Sallinen has a similar, though airier, sound world to Sibelius's, and like his elder compatriot has a great liking for building tension through enormous pedal points.
I have two recordings of the First, so I had something to triangulate it by. Alas, I didn't care much for this performance. It felt stiff, and never penetrated to an understanding of the soul of the music. Had I not known the work, it would have sounded like just another wad of semi-tonal modernism. Many listeners might hear it and promptly forget the composer, which is too bad.
Nor was I thrilled with the performance of Sibelius's Violin Concerto which came after. This whip-snap of a work was dull and meandering, despite valiant playing by the orchestra and Vadim Repin, the soloist.
At this point one looks to the conductor for someone to blame. This was Osmo Vänskä, whose recordings I do not dislike, so I am not sure why, judging from this concert, he seems to have so little feel for the music of his countrymen. Vänskä is music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, so perhaps locals of that area who read this may have heard him at home and have some thoughts.
After intermission came some Beethoven - the Coriolan Overture and Eighth Symphony [latest candidate for "why is it always this work?"] - which fared better. Heavy, stodgy, rather old-fashioned performances, but Beethoven thrives under that, as he does with the sudden, unexpected rhythmic emphases Vänskä is prone to.
I did one good deed: the poster pinned in the elevator announcing that the conductor would sign CDs printed his surname without the umlauts. So when nobody was looking I penciled them in.
I didn't get to the Borderlands mega-signing, though with a little more time available I might have. I did, however, get to the city library where I'd had paged a 1943 bound magazine volume in their collection containing an until-recently-unknown-to-me book review by that splendid Inkling, Hugo Dyson, which I neatly photocopied to add to my collection.
