United States Ravel, Bartók, Prokofiev: Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano), San Francisco Symphony / Esa-Pekka Salonen (conductor). Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, 17.2.2023. (HS)
Ravel – Le tombeau de Couperin
Bartók – Piano Concerto No.2
Prokofiev – Selections from Romeo and Juliet
An enchanting facet of San Francisco Symphony’s present season is the chance for audiences to listen to how Esa-Pekka Salonen approaches items that have been touchstones for his predecessor as music director for 25 years, Michael Tilson Thomas. The newest – the much-loved music from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet ballet – proved to be a revelation.
As this system notes identified, conductors typically combine and match actions from Prokofiev’s three suites to concoct their very own assemblages. Tilson Thomas and his predecessors in San Francisco – notably Seiji Ozawa and Edo de Waart – did so, following their very own muses. Whatever Tilson Thomas got here up with – and he programmed this music typically – it favored Prokofiev’s daring rhythms and heart-on-sleeve romanticism.
Salonen’s take included many of the massive moments, beginning with the distinction between the galumphing rhythms of the ‘Dance of the Knights’ in ‘Montagues and Capulets’, and the deftly skittering bustle of ‘The Young Juliet’ making ready for the ball. Prokofiev, notably didn’t embrace both till his Suite No.2, however they’re now among the many hottest excerpts from the ballet. Salonen combined these acquainted moments with lesser-heard scenes, most appealingly with the mild ‘Morning Dance’ and the gloriously plush ‘Aubade’ (each from Suite No.3).
His sense of rhythm struck me as extra measured than that of Tilson Thomas, particularly within the heavyweight strutting dance from the early scene. The softer sections glowed with a hotter gentle, and all of it balanced marvelously.
Salonen relished the kaleidoscope of textures and colours in Prokofiev’s rating, particularly within the broadly swish ‘Minuet’ and sharper ‘Mask’ from the ball scene, prominently featured in Prokofiev’s first suite. A brief model of the balcony scene (‘Romeo and Juliet’) created a hopeful feeling. Later, in ‘Romeo at the Fountain’ (which Prokofiev used to open the third suite), the conductor conveyed an undertow of fear in an image of the character greeting a sunny morning early within the ballet.
This led properly to the ‘Death of Tybalt’, a mainstay of most advert hoc suites for its lengthy crescendo from playful to menace in a scene pivotal to the story’s plot. Like Tilson Thomas, Salonen can conjure up a musical build-up that shakes our bones, and he did.
Following that with the candy morning-music of ‘Aubade’ was a pleasant stroke, the start of a downward facet of the arc: the delicate unhappiness of ‘Romeo at Juliet’s Grave’ (which ends Prokofiev’s second suite) after which, lastly, ‘Death of Juliet’ (which ends the third suite). The outcome was a sweeping narrative from the fizziness of ‘The Young Juliet’ to the climax of Tybalt’s loss of life and again all the way down to the tragic ending’s mild musical language.
Although the orchestra has been selling the live performance with the Prokofiev, on my calendar I had tagged it for Bartók’s Piano Concerto No.2, with the much-admired pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard on the keyboard. Known for his work in music by Ligeti, Boulez and Messiaen, Aimard ought to have mined all of the raucous particulars of Bartók’s insanely tough concerto.
Unfortunately, not fairly. Although he performed the music stylishly, the primary motion by no means appeared to get in sync rhythmically with Salonen and the orchestra (which, aided by bumptious percussion, danced merrily). At instances Aimard was a tad behind Salonen’s beat, generally forward of it. The outcome was a way of unease quite than momentum. The Adagio was higher, the place the piano grew to become extra expressive within the adorned slow-scale figures. The motion’s Presto central part, although, lurched awkwardly.
The concerto is being recorded for future launch. Let us hope the opposite two performances on the schedule have gotten the beat collectively.
Ravel’s homage to eighteenth-century French music, Le tombeau de Couperin, opened the live performance in a efficiency that featured some stunning enjoying by principal oboe Eugene Izotov. For his half, Salonen, conducting with no baton, elicited soft-edged sound with out dropping important rhythms. Somehow, he formed it as a gauzy Ravel creation quite than the faux-Baroque performances we frequently hear.
When the orchestra got here on stage for the Prokofiev, all collectively in European-style as an alternative of warming up and practising as standard, the musicians acknowledged the viewers’s applause by holding up green-tinted paper handouts to clarify their facet of ongoing contract negotiations. They have been negotiating their contract since September and agreed to a pay minimize in the course of the pandemic. In a program insert, administration spelled out its present supply intimately.
Harvey Steiman