The Opera Tattler
Reviews of Performances and their Audiences
Category: San Francisco Symphony
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* Notes * Michael Tilson Thomas conducted Knussen's Symphony No. 3 and Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 last night at San Francisco Symphony. Though Tilson Thomas gave a helpful exposition of the former piece before he began, the work did not improve for me after a second hearing. I still found it rather metallic in sound,…
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* Notes * The Inside Music talk for San Francisco Symphony's recent West Coast premiere of Lindberg's Seht die Sonne was a lecture by musicologist Ilkka Oramo, followed by a short interview of the composer. It was mentioned that Lindberg works like a scientist and his work is approaching tonal objects. The influences of Seht…
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* Notes * Michael Tilson Thomas and San Francisco Symphony end a 3-week long Brahms Festival tonight. The chorus was in fine form during Friday's performance, the singers were very much together, in tune, and their German diction was fairly clear. The first half of the performance included Geistliches Lied, Opus 30 and Gesänge für…
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* Notes * Yesterday Sir Neville Marriner conducted the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields in a program of Mozart's Symphony No. 31, Paris, Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1, Mendelssohn's Sinfonia No. 10, and Haydn's Symphony No. 104, London. The Mozart was played crisply and with spirit. Yuja Wang was the soloist for the piano…
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September 3 2008: Gala (Chabrier, Bernstein, Rachmaninoff)September 4-7 2008: Ligeti, Poulenc, Prokofiev's 5thSeptember 10-12 2008: Knussen's 3rd, Beethoven's 9thSeptember 15 2008: Pension Fund Concert (Beethoven's 9th)September 17-19 2008: BernsteinOctober 8-11 2008: Mozart, Szymanowski, R. Strauss, TchaikovskyOctober 12 2008: Beethoven Piano SonatasOctober 16-18 2008: Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann's 2ndOctober 19 2008: Beethoven Piano SonatasOctober 23-25 2008: R.…
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* Notes * Herbert Blomstedt, conductor laureate and former music director of the San Francisco Symphony, is currently conducting an all Mozart program, which includes Divertimento in D major, K.251, Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat Major, K.482, and Symphony No. 38 in D Major, K.504, Prague. The last performance is tonight over at Davies…
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* Notes * Last week Ingo Metzmacher conducted San Francisco Symphony in a program of Ligeti's San Francisco Polyphony, Bartók's Piano Concerto No. 3, and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 6. Pianist Hélène Grimaud was the soloist for the Bartók, and she played splendidly, without any of the silly dramatic flourishes one often sees with famous pianists.…
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* Notes * Yesterday Michael Tilson Thomas conducted San Francisco Symphony in a program of Knussen's Symphony No. 3, Strauss' Vier letzte Lieder, Barber's Andromache's Farewell, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 4. Soprano Deborah Voigt returned to San Francisco Symphony as the soloist for the Strauss and Barber, a performance she will reprise with MTT at Carnegie…
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* Notes * Of Händel's 29 oratorios, Messiah is far and away the most performed, and is the composer's most famous work. Messiah has returned again to San Francisco Symphony for a couple of performances, conducted by Ragnar Bohlin, who is the new director of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. Bohlin made his debut conducting…
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* Notes * The Eroica Trio played Beethoven's Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano in C major, Op. 56 with San Francisco Symphony in the second week of March. They were quite attractive but their playing was lush and rather romantic. This was not altogether bad given what they were playing, but at times it…
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