concert review: San Francisco Symphony

[calimac]

If you order by the yard the kind of music that Mozart composed by the yard, you get a concert full of yard goods. Such was the part of this evening's event that consisted of Pinchas Zukerman playing and vaguely leading one and a half Mozart violin concertos. The one was K. 216 and the half was made out of two scattered movements, K. 261 and K. 373. The last of these in particular is pure hackwork and you can't make anything else out of it, so you'd be better off not trying. Tucked in among these, Zukerman traded his violin for a viola, not that you'd notice, and gave out Hindemith's Trauermusik with the mute button on. It was such a crabbed and repressed performance that Zukerman had to start waving his arms at the audience to let them know it was over so they could applaud.

After intermission, our hero returned without an instrument but with a baton and turned his full attention to the orchestra for a decidedly non-yard goods piece of Mozart, the "Great" G-minor symphony K. 550. The orchestra hitched its metaphorical pants up and delivered, very well, a fleet, fine-boned performance, soberly and classically shaped, designed to give the lie to words like "urgent" and "explosive" in the program notes.

Comments

[voidampersand.livejournal.com]

Pinchas Zukerman's playing tonight was lovely. The SFS played well behind him, with great delicacy and restraint. Really nice work on the soft passages. Also some beautiful playing by the woodwinds in K. 373. Trauermusik was somber but expressive with good firm tone from Zukerman and the orchestra for the first three movements, then it floated off aimlessly in the Chorale. It seemed like there were some breakdowns in K. 216, one where the violins were sharp, one where they were out of step, and another where the basses were out of step. Zukerman finished the piece playing to the orchestra instead of the audience, and the sound from his violin disappeared into the mix. There in a nutshell is the problem of trying to play chamber orchestra music in Davies Hall. But still it was a delightful performance. Zukerman's cadenzas were exquisite.

In the second half the orchestra came out with a much bigger sound. It was basically the same players; I think the difference was they could play to Zukerman instead of having to play behind him. But I think they overdid it. Maybe this was the "explosive" they were trying for; if so, the piece didn't need it.

My guess is that if I'd gone three nights ago and seen the same performance you did, I'd be agreeing with your review. Or maybe it's just that I like concertos.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Kosman heard the performance between ours and had an intermediate opinion.