Ravel<\/strong> \u2013 Le tombeau de Couperin An enchanting facet of San Francisco Symphony\u2019s 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 \u2013 the much-loved music from Prokofiev\u2019s Romeo and Juliet<\/em> ballet \u2013 proved to be a revelation.<\/p>\n As this system notes identified, conductors typically combine and match actions from Prokofiev\u2019s three suites to concoct their very own assemblages. Tilson Thomas and his predecessors in San Francisco \u2013 notably Seiji Ozawa and Edo de Waart \u2013 did so, following their very own muses. Whatever Tilson Thomas got here up with \u2013 and he programmed this music typically \u2013 it favored Prokofiev\u2019s daring rhythms and heart-on-sleeve romanticism.<\/p>\n Salonen\u2019s take included many of the massive moments, beginning with the distinction between the galumphing rhythms of the \u2018Dance of the Knights\u2019 in \u2018Montagues and Capulets\u2019, and the deftly skittering bustle of \u2018The Young Juliet\u2019 making ready for the ball. Prokofiev, notably didn\u2019t 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 \u2018Morning Dance\u2019 and the gloriously plush \u2018Aubade\u2019 (each from Suite No.3).<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Salonen relished the kaleidoscope of textures and colours in Prokofiev\u2019s rating, particularly within the broadly swish \u2018Minuet\u2019 and sharper \u2018Mask\u2019 from the ball scene, prominently featured in Prokofiev\u2019s first suite. A brief model of the balcony scene (\u2018Romeo and Juliet\u2019) created a hopeful feeling. Later, in \u2018Romeo at the Fountain\u2019 (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.<\/p>\n This led properly to the \u2018Death of Tybalt\u2019, a mainstay of most advert hoc<\/em> suites for its lengthy crescendo from playful to menace in a scene pivotal to the story\u2019s plot. Like Tilson Thomas, Salonen can conjure up a musical build-up that shakes our bones, and he did.<\/p>\n Following that with the candy morning-music of \u2018Aubade\u2019 was a pleasant stroke, the start of a downward facet of the arc: the delicate unhappiness of \u2018Romeo at Juliet\u2019s Grave\u2019 (which ends Prokofiev\u2019s second suite) after which, lastly, \u2018Death of Juliet\u2019 (which ends the third suite). The outcome was a sweeping narrative from the fizziness of \u2018The Young Juliet\u2019 to the climax of Tybalt\u2019s loss of life and again all the way down to the tragic ending\u2019s mild musical language.<\/p>\n Although the orchestra has been selling the live performance with the Prokofiev, on my calendar I had tagged it for Bart\u00f3k\u2019s 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 Bart\u00f3k\u2019s insanely tough concerto.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s beat, generally forward of it. The outcome was a way of unease quite than momentum. The Adagio <\/em>was higher, the place the piano grew to become extra expressive within the adorned slow-scale figures. The motion\u2019s Presto <\/em>central part, although, lurched awkwardly.<\/p>\n The concerto is being recorded for future launch. Let us hope the opposite two performances on the schedule have gotten the beat collectively.<\/p>\n Ravel\u2019s homage to eighteenth-century French music, Le tombeau de Couperin,<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Harvey Steiman<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n [ad_2]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [ad_1] United States Ravel, Bart\u00f3k, Prokofiev: Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano), San Francisco Symphony \/ Esa-Pekka Salonen (conductor). Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, 17.2.2023. (HS) Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard and the SF Symphony \u00a9 Kristen Loken Ravel \u2013 Le tombeau de CouperinBart\u00f3k \u2013 Piano Concerto No.2Prokofiev \u2013 Selections from Romeo and Juliet An enchanting facet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":69563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-69561","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-theatre"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"United](\"https:\/\/seenandheard-international.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/world-flags\/images\/flags\/24\/us.png\" "\\"United")
United States<\/span><\/span><\/span> Ravel, Bart\u00f3k, Prokofiev:<\/span><\/strong> Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano), San Francisco Symphony \/ Esa-Pekka Salonen (conductor). Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, 17.2.2023. (HS)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/seenandheard-international.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/image-36-e1676852993965-500x324.png\")
<\/em>Bart\u00f3k<\/strong> \u2013 Piano Concerto No.2
Prokofiev<\/strong> \u2013 Selections from Romeo and Juliet<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/seenandheard-international.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/image-35-e1676852850430-500x303.png\")