concert review: San Francisco Symphony
Oct. 6th, 2005 11:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacHerbert Blomstedt was the conductor, but the first half belonged to pianist Leon Fleisher. First he took us in a genially bumptuous manner through a melancholy early Mozart concerto (K.414), which featured a truly amazing fortissimo intermezzo for audience coughers in between the second and third movements.
Then, a rare treat: Paul Hindemith's Piano (Left Hand) Music With Orchestra of 1923. The clumsy title's evasiveness was unnecssary: it is a genuine piano concerto, one of many commissioned around that time by wealthy but one-armed WWI-vet pianist Paul Wittgenstein (brother of Ludwig). The problem was that Paul W. didn't care for much of the music of his time, and when you commission works from people like Hindemith, Ravel, and Prokofiev, you'll get works by Hindemith, Ravel, and Prokofiev. Wittgenstein consented to play the Ravel, which became a standard modern classic, but the Prokofiev remained unplayed for thirty years, and the Hindemith score lay buried, literally, among other papers in a farmhouse in Pennsylvania for decades after everyone involved was dead, and was first played last fall. This was its North American premiere.
Very typical of early Hindemith, it's great fun. In the fast movements, staccato tuttis alternate with passages for the piano to rumble around, hardly sounding as if only one hand is playing it. The first movement sounds most like the Hindemith to come (he had a wonderful way with trombones); the finale reminds me of nothing so much as the then-unwritten Shostakovich First Concerto.
The slow movement in between is totally different, quiet and subdued. The piano dances decoratively around an extraordinarily long solo for English horn, followed by a shorter one for flute. The only other instruments playing are one desk of celli and a single double bass, providing subdued pizzicato harmonies.
And after intermission ... Beethoven's Fifth again, the second time I've heard it live in the past week! Offered a good chance to compare different interpretations. Flynn with the SSV was full of coiled aggressiveness; Blomstedt went straight for the power. His tempos were more moderate, he didn't draw out the fermatas as Flynn did, he even slackened a bit during the finale and barely got away with it. But the strength of the ensemble was something to behold, and they are a world-class orchestra, there's no getting around that. William Bennett did not have to invent a new oboe cadenza.
Then, a rare treat: Paul Hindemith's Piano (Left Hand) Music With Orchestra of 1923. The clumsy title's evasiveness was unnecssary: it is a genuine piano concerto, one of many commissioned around that time by wealthy but one-armed WWI-vet pianist Paul Wittgenstein (brother of Ludwig). The problem was that Paul W. didn't care for much of the music of his time, and when you commission works from people like Hindemith, Ravel, and Prokofiev, you'll get works by Hindemith, Ravel, and Prokofiev. Wittgenstein consented to play the Ravel, which became a standard modern classic, but the Prokofiev remained unplayed for thirty years, and the Hindemith score lay buried, literally, among other papers in a farmhouse in Pennsylvania for decades after everyone involved was dead, and was first played last fall. This was its North American premiere.
Very typical of early Hindemith, it's great fun. In the fast movements, staccato tuttis alternate with passages for the piano to rumble around, hardly sounding as if only one hand is playing it. The first movement sounds most like the Hindemith to come (he had a wonderful way with trombones); the finale reminds me of nothing so much as the then-unwritten Shostakovich First Concerto.
The slow movement in between is totally different, quiet and subdued. The piano dances decoratively around an extraordinarily long solo for English horn, followed by a shorter one for flute. The only other instruments playing are one desk of celli and a single double bass, providing subdued pizzicato harmonies.
And after intermission ... Beethoven's Fifth again, the second time I've heard it live in the past week! Offered a good chance to compare different interpretations. Flynn with the SSV was full of coiled aggressiveness; Blomstedt went straight for the power. His tempos were more moderate, he didn't draw out the fermatas as Flynn did, he even slackened a bit during the finale and barely got away with it. But the strength of the ensemble was something to behold, and they are a world-class orchestra, there's no getting around that. William Bennett did not have to invent a new oboe cadenza.
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Date: 2005-10-07 07:55 pm (UTC)R. Strauss's "Parergon" and "Panathenaenzug" were written for P. Wittgenstein too, as you perhaps know. A search of catalogs produced a couple solo piano works for left hand by Saint-Saens (Etudes Op. 135) and Scriabin (Op. 9), predating Wittgenstein but played by him.