People Are Talking About…the San Francisco Symphony!
Posted: 3/19/10 -- 1:00 am
by The UMS Lobby
After an exciting weekend with the San Francisco Symphony, their concerts and residency activities, plus the awarding of the 2010 UMS Distinguished Artist Award, we’ll be eager to hear what everyone thought! Did you see both concerts? Who attended the residency events? Was MTT as captivating as he always is?
6/16/13 at 11:20 am Happy Father's Day! From our archives, baby duty in Hill Auditorium Lobby, 1974.
6/13/13 at 11:40 am For you global music lovers, don't miss Mali stars Amadou & Mariam, from our friends at Ann Arbor Summer Festival: Top of the Park in July:
a2sf.org
The Ann Arbor Summer Festival is an international arts gathering connecting people, exceptional performance, sunshine, and a little something for everyone.
6/12/13 at 11:40 am Opera lovers! Don't miss Becoming Traviata, June 21-30, from our friends at Detroit Institute of Arts:
The reinvention of Verdi’s masterpiece, La Traviata, as sung by world-famous French coloratura soprano Natalie Dessay, is the subject of Philippe Béziat’s thrilling new movie, in which a modern, minimalist, post-punk approach strips away the rigid, over-the-top grandiosity so often associated with o...
6/11/13 at 11:40 am Preview James Blake live in concert on NPR Music. Tickets are on sale NOW for his November 11 performance in Michigan Theater: http://bit.ly/11QK1HF
Watch the singer perform 90 minutes of breathtakingly emotional music, recorded live at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. Unpredictable and often mysterious, Blake's songs are intense and riveting, hopeful and thoughtful.
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Christian Tetzlaff and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra danced their way through Tchaikovsky's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra tonight.
We were swept into applause at the end of the first movement of the concerto.
Mr. Tetzlaff plays with passion, poetry, poise, and a prodigious technique.
I was left in a state of awe and wonder.
I hadn't heard the Concerto "live" since a glowing performance of it in Detroit 45 or so years ago by Itzhak Perlman and the Detroit Syhmphony Orchestra.
Tonight's performance doesn't eclipse the former one.
They're twins of comparable stature.
Jim Toy
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Did you like the Post-scriptum? I sure didn't! I really don't like modern music with tons of percussion!
QazQaz
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Agreed — great performance. Too bad it was marred (for me) by some very disruptive kids in the row ahead of me who were way too young to be able to sit still through a concert like this. In fact, it seemed like there were a lot of kids there tonight. Did UMS do some sort of outreach to schools or something?
cmsmw
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Sara Billmann from UMS here. We didn't do any special outreach to schools. I suspect that the children who attended may have purchased tickets through our "Classical Kids Club" program — we offer a limited number of tickets for children and their parents at specially discounted rates for all concerts on the Choral Union Series. I'm sorry that your experience wasn't pleasant. I was sitting up in the balcony for that concert and was astonished by how incredibly well-behaved the children near me were (and as the parent of an 8-year-old and an almost 6-year-old, I know what a feat that is!). It's a real conundrum, frankly — on the one hand, people bemoan the fact that kids aren't learning about classical music, but then when they are in the venue and behave like, well, kids, people are also frustrated. And yet I'd be willing to bet that that performance will have a profound impact on some of the kids who were in attendance. I really applaud the parents who introduce their kids from a young age to this spectacular music but also recognize that every parent has an obligation to be sure that his/her children are behaving. I'd love to hear what other people think.
Sara Billmann, UMS
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Check out Susan Nisbett's fine review on AnnArbor.com of the Orchestra's concert, posted at 5 this morning (that's impressive!!):
http://www.annarbor.com/entertainment/san-francis…
Jean Shirk
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I also wrote a blog post for the SF Symphony's social network about the concert and the Orchestra's residency here, including two concerts, master classes by Michael Tilson Thomas and the musicians, a screening of the Symphony's Keeping Score Shostakovich documentary, and more:
http://community.sfsymphony.org/profiles/blogs/po…
Jean Shirk
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There was nothing to offend anyone's musical appetite in last night's program; this fare slides down the gullet easily. The Kissine Postscriptum stimulated one's imagination. I learned shortly before the concert that it was inspired by Charles Ives' Unanswered Question. I speculate it is, as its title implies, the sequel to the serene silence in which that piece ended. You recall, in his short piece Ives has the trumpet raising an existential-metaphysical question, presumably about existence itself. A small choir of winds either answers it in various excited ways or, take your choice, tells the questioner to keep his silly question to himself and restore the silence. Well, Kissine brings us up to the space age, in which there are bigger stakes in how one answers that question than was the case in 1906, when the piece was first composed. We hear the space idioms and colors available to the sonic resources of the contemporary orchestra and familiar from futuristic movies, and we have a much more excited set of fumbling replies to the question. I liked it.
Then Christian Tetzlaff gave us a technically smooth, but perhaps a little too sober, reading of the Tscaikovsky Violin Concerto against the background of a larger (and somewhat louder) orchestra than is common. (Who told that uppity clarinet it could take a solo?) After the intermission we heard Ravel's Valses nobles et sentimentales, his, you might say, sketches for the later La Valse. You can't help feeling the rhythm in your bones and dancing subliminally along with the music. My two pianist family members were unanimous in asserting that the piano version of this piece is preferable. However, the matter remain undecided since I've never heard a pianist give preference to an orchestration! It's a guild thing.
Then came the (anti)climax, Liszt's Tasso. He takes the same theme through a lament section, then a kind of courtly minuet, and finally escalates it to a song of triumph. That's quite enjoyable but then he makes his grand peroration; the Lisztian handwriting is always clear — bursts of rapid cymbal fire while nothing of musical consequence is happening anymore or altogether. Also kinda boring really. (I just lost a friend.) But wait: great music for heating the blood! Anyway, that's Liszt. — Tonight will be more interesting: Mahler #2.
music lover
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If Christian Tetzlaff's rendering of the Tschaikovsky piano concert was "too sober", I wonder if we heard the same concert. For anyone who has ever played the violin, Friday night's performance has again demonstrated that the piece remains the non-plus ultra of one of the most difficult and also most spirited works of the entire violin literature.
Helmut Pfanner
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I thought that the Post-scriptum was really weird! Who agrees with me? Write back!
Happy
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I definitely thought the same thing! And I tend to enjoy new music, but that piece just made me so uncomfortable. It was like MTT took his baton and kept poking my soul with it!
Rachel Lum
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So is commenting on disruptive children — which is *not* to say that all children are disruptive; not at all — out of bounds here? My previous comment on that with regard to the Friday evening concert seems to have been deleted. I think it's a serious issue that needs to be addressed before other excellent performances are marred by children who shouldn't have been forced to try to sit through something they couldn't reasonably expect to? Can UMS do more to educate parents about what kinds of performances are best for their children — in other words, best for their particular family's interests and characteristics?
No such problems tonight, I'm happy to report — and we had another very good performance. I thought the end of the symphony was drawn out a little further than the music could bear, and it seemed a little on the tame, cautious side, but — wow — what detail MTT brought out throughout the piece. These folks are always welcome guests here in Ann Arbor.
cmsmw
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Sorry — Change the first question mark to a period. Maybe I need to hit the hay!
cmsmw
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Arg — second question mark. To bed!
cmsmw
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Disregard the first two sentences in the original post above. My previous comment has been restored — and with a nice email from a UMS staff member explaining why it disappeared temporarily, which had nothing to do with censorship.
cmsmw
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Congratulations cmsmw! For leaving such great comments on http://www.umsLOBBY.org, you've been selected by UMS to receive a great SFS-themed prize! Please email your name and mailing address to ums-contest@umich.edu, and we'll send the prize to you. Thanks for participating in the Lobby! — Jim Leija, UMS PR Manager
Jim Leija
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I was right last night when I predicted that tonight's concert would be more interesting. It was a hell of a lot more interesting! Before the music started, the SF Symphony and Tilson-Thomas received the UMS Distinguished Artist(s) Award. They should have received another one afterward.
First, they played the Mahler #2 pretty much as it has come down to us through the years. There was no foolish attempt made to open new vistas. When I go to a concert these days, I am grateful, oh, so grateful when traditional forms are preserved. There've been quite enough productions of Pagliacci set in Oregon and Don Giovanni in the nude! This rarely brings new insights of any value.
Second, they realized the mission of the symphony. What's it all about? The first movement presents — in musical terms — the struggle between the march to death and heavenly transcendence. Then Mahler reminds us, via a simple country dance, of the joys of earthly life, fleeting as they are. Next comes a wry look at and ultimately rejection of traditional "organized" religion; no one listens to a preacher anyway: when St. Anthony addresses the fish in the ocean, they stare at him with open mouths and then go about their business; that's the song Mahler worked into orchestral form. And how those woodwinds and plucked strings lampoon the sermon in the third movement! Faith, the poet says, is where it's at. "Believe, believe, my heart!" It has to come from inside the heart, not from the pulpit. Only then will bliss be yours, and the heavens will open to you. You will live through death.
Yes, all this happened in Hill Auditorium. Orchestra and chorus were in excellent form – the huge assembly of singers found the conductor's downbeat after a mere few measures; this can happen after you sit there for an hour and a half waiting for your entrance — and a lovely mezzo-soprano floated her tones across the large forces on stage in the fourth movement. That's actually harder than one might suppose, given that the climaxes were a bit louder than you've heard in other performances. Some conductors (and audiences) like things loud; what can you do: people get used nowadays to things being too loud, and, as a result, are slightly deaf. I would take it down one or too notches. Tilson-Thomas worked the crescendi skillfully all evening. Also some of the temporal suspensions – what the Germans call Luftpausen (pausing for air) – those little hesitations in a waltz (last night) or in a landler (this evening) that make for suspense and a touch of frisson.
Mahler was not a particularly religious person. A few years after writing this work he converted to Christianity to become eligible for the directorship of the Imperial Court Opera in Vienna – today's State Opera. But he said he could never bring himself to utter the Credo and that he was an agnostic. Nevertheless, tonight one atheist in the audience admitted to me that she had "found religion" in this performance. Mahler would surely have been pleased with this.
Music Lover
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Congratulations Music Lover! For leaving such great comments on http://www.umsLOBBY.org, you've been selected by UMS to receive a great SFS-themed prize! Please email your name and mailing address to ums-contest@umich.edu, and we'll send the prize to you. Thanks for participating in the Lobby! — Jim Leija, UMS PR Manager
Jim Leija
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Keep writing Music Lover…so insightful and well articulated !!
Margaret
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Christian Tetzlaff's performance of the Tcaikowsky violin concerto was bloodless, without passion. Perhaps it takes a Russian violinist to do justice to this work?
Guest
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I have to say that while I think there is some truth to what the above Guest says, it was the surprising, unconventional and sometimes SHOCKING choices that ended up holding my attention. His interpretation basically threw all the performance conventions out the window and rebuilt the piece from the bottom up. There wasn't a lick of sentimentality or self-indulgence. Just the music. It is without a doubt the first time I have actually understood some of what is actually going on in this piece of music because there was NOTHING to hide behind. The Tchaik Violin Concerto is a virtuoso work of the highest order. However, I do not think of Tetzlaff as a virtuoso; I think of him as a poet. The virtuoso being concerned primarily with display and the poet, concerned instead, with drawing you into his confidence of secrets. Ultimately, he has made me see the work anew…WOW. That is the highest praise of all.
Margaret
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Congratulations Margaret! For leaving such great comments on http://www.umsLOBBY.org, you've been selected by UMS to receive a great SFS-themed prize! Please email your name and mailing address to ums-contest@umich.edu, and we'll send the prize to you. Thanks for participating in the Lobby! — Jim Leija, UMS PR Manager
Jim Leija
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I was surprised to see positive comments on MTT/SFS Mahler 2. The symphony is great, but the performance was far from being great. As I see on youtube, it seems that MTT is not a bad pianist, but somehow it doesn't work out on podium.
MJK
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