The Opera Tattler
Reviews of Performances and their Audiences
Category: San Francisco Symphony
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* Notes * Last night Vladimir Ashkenazy conducted San Francisco Symphony in the world premiere of Steven Gerber's Music in Dark Times. The piece was commissioned by Ashkenazy and also dedicated to him.The fanfares of the first and last movements did not show off the brass to their best advantage, though the woodwinds sounded beautiful in the second movement.…
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* Notes * San Francisco Symphony's first Davies After Hours event was last night, after Nicola Luisotti again conducted Kodály, Bloch, and Brahms. The Second Tier Lobby was completely packed with people, and at times one could hardly move. This event seems intent on bridging classical music with a younger, hipper audience, not unlike the…
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* Notes * This week the incoming music director of San Francisco Opera, Nicola Luisotti, is conducting San Francisco Symphony in a program of Kodály, Bloch, and Brahms. The Galántai Tánkoc (Dances of Galánta) from Kodály were great fun. The woodwinds sounded clear, the clarinet and oboe were particularly lovely. In the second piece, cellist Michael Grebanier…
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* Notes * James Conlon conducted San Francisco Symphony in a performance of Berlioz, Liszt, and Shostakovich yesterday evening. The horn timing seemed somewhat off in Berlioz's Le Corsaire Overture, though I do not know the piece, so certainly I cannot say this definitively. The flutes played very deftly, and the brass did sound quite…
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September 9 2009: Gala with Lang Lang (Liszt, Ravel, Rodgers, Prokofiev) September 10-12 2009: Liszt, Ravel, Rodgers, Prokofiev September 16-20 2009: Susan Graham sings Rückert-Lieder, Mahler's 1st September 23-26 2009: Thomas Hampson sings Mahler September 30- October 3 2009: Scelsi's Hymnos, Mahler's 5thOctober 7-10 2009: Brett Dean, Haydn's 94th, BrahmsOctober 11 2009: Murray Perahia, pianoOctober 14-18…
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* Notes * Anne-Sophie Mutter gave the US premiere of Sofia Gubaidulina's second violin concerto, In tempus präsens, with San Francisco Symphony, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, yesterday. The piece was played again tonight, and has a shimmering, yet compressive quality, filled with bumblebees and crickets. Mutter played cleanly and with much vigor. The violas,…
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* Notes * Yesterday evening Kurt Masur conducted San Francisco Symphony in a program of Gubaidulina and Bruckner. Gubaidulina's The Light of the End conjured up waves and air, there were parts near the beginning that sounded rather insectile, and parts near the end that were more bird-like. The marimba made for a pleasing earthy contrast with…
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* Notes * James Gaffigan conducted San Francisco Symphony in a program of Russian music last weekend. The evening began with Tchaikovsky, first his Voyevoda, which was rather incidental, but played well, and then his Violin Concerto. The soloist in the latter was the famed Hilary Hahn, and she could be both ferociously aggressive…
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* Notes * Michael Tilson Thomas and San Francisco Symphony continued their Mahler recording project with Mahler's Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major, the so-called Symphony of a Thousand. The work struck me as a bit strange, the first part being in Latin and rather religious in feel, whereas the second part is in German, and…
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* Notes * Michael Tilson Thomas conducted San Francisco Symphony in a program of Haydn, Barber, and Beethoven last week. The Haydn was Symphony No. 60 in C major, Il distratto, which was sprightly and perfectly cute. This made for a nice contrast with Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915, which is a bit moodier.…
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